Table of Contents

1. ARION

1. Copyright

2. Dedication

3. Synopsis

4. Chapter One

5. Chapter Two

6. Chapter Three

7. Chapter Four

8. Chapter Five

9. Chapter Six

10. Chapter Seven

11. Chapter Eight

12. Chapter Nine

13. Chapter Ten

14. Chapter Eleven

15. Chapter Twelve

16. Chapter Thirteen

17. Chapter Fourteen

18. Chapter Fifteen

19. Chapter Sixteen

20. Chapter Seventeen

21. Chapter Eighteen

22. Chapter Nineteen

23. Chapter Twenty

24. Chapter Twenty-One

25. Chapter Twenty-Two

26. Chapter Twenty-Three

27. Chapter Twenty-Four

28. Chapter Twenty-Five

29. Chapter Twenty-Six

30. Chapter Twenty-Seven

31. Chapter Twenty-Eight

32. Chapter Twenty-Nine

33. Chapter Thirty

34. Chapter Thirty-One

35. Chapter Thirty-Two

ARION

Ted R. Blasingame

Copyright

ARION

©September 2022 Ted R. Blasingame

All rights reserved.

230118

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the author. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet, email or any other means without the permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Your support of the author’s rights is greatly appreciated.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Cover art ©Elizabeth Jackson

Visit the author’s website

http://trblasingame.com

Dedication

To James R. Lane

Thanks for your years of friendship,

Inspiration and good humor.

ARION

What began as Earth's first colonization effort to another star, the lives of these one hundred men, women and a synthetic intelligence took a decidedly different turn than what was expected. Unknown dangers out in the void of space would change their lives in the literal sense, and by the time they arrived after their lengthy journey, they would no longer be the people they used to be.

Chapter One

The Interview

The aged, handsome face of the world’s most recognized televised news anchor smiled out at his audience.

“Hello, I am Donald Harkin, and welcome to tonight’s edition of Earth News Today for a live conversation with Dr. Kathleen Ruston and ARN-28080 of Project Pegasus, a subject of recent documentaries that have sparked interest across the nations of the world.

“Dr. Kate, as she prefers to be called, is the heart and brains behind the project. ARN-28080 is, of course, the soul of the project himself, the Synthetic Intelligence controlling the colony ship Arion-1. This vessel will soon be departing the Earth on a historic flight to a planet in the far, distant star system known as 51 Pegasi, which is also sometimes simply referred to by astronomers as 51 Peg.

“Dr. Kate is a logistical engineer, the director in charge of Earth’s two-vessel interstellar colony project, who has been involved with it since its inception. Welcome Dr. Kate.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harkin.” A woman in her upper forties nodded toward the news anchor from the comfort of a plush chair across from him. Auburn hair flowed around the shoulders of her sartorial-perfect business attire and moved in waves with her nod.

The anchor’s gaze shifted to another chair beside the woman. In the studio, the chair was vacant, but displayed on the broadcast image was a photorealistic holographic display of a handsome young man in a sharp business suit with his hands in his lap. Out of range of the camera directly behind the chair was a large display screen for the news anchor to see the SI in real-time as his viewers would see him. Another screen was strategically placed beside that chair for Dr. Kate to see the same man if she turned to look at him.

“Welcome, ARN-28080. We are pleased that you could join us.”

“Thank you, Mr. Harkin,” said the young man’s image. “I am happy to be here, but for convenience you may call me Arion.”

To those who watched the worldwide broadcast, they saw an olive-skinned man in his thirties with short black hair, large brown eyes with thick lashes, a straight nose and prominent cheek bones. The man looked as if he could be of Greek ancestry. Over the breast pocket of his suit, he wore a badge depicting a stylized horse rearing up on its hind legs.

Harkin gestured toward the badge, “What is the symbol you are wearing?”

“It is the ship’s logo,” the SI answered. “The Greek origin of the name Arion means ‘enchanted’ and was a ‘divinely bred, extremely swift immortal horse endowed with speech’. The name was chosen for Earth’s ‘extremely swift’ manned ships, the fastest ever built. This logo depicts a chestnut horse with a dark mane, the common description of the mythological creature.”

“I see, that’s interesting. Considering that the project name is Pegasus, I am puzzled that the emblem is not that of a winged horse.”

“Yes, I can see why you might think that, but while the project name is Pegasus in reference to 51 Pegasi, the name for the ships – and myself – is Arion. It is a different, though related symbolism.”

“Ah, okay.” Harkin looked first at Dr. Kate and then toward his virtual guest. “So, shall we begin?”

“Certainly,” Arion replied. Dr. Kate just nodded, knowing in advance that she was here merely on principle since the focus would be primarily upon the SI. She doubted much of the interview would be directed at her.

“Arion, tell us about 51 Peg, the intended destination of Earth’s two interstellar ships.”

“Also known as Helvetios, 51 Pegasi is a G-type main-sequence yellow dwarf star with an apparent magnitude of 5.49, located 50.91 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus.”

“How long will it take to get there?

“After constant incremental acceleration and upon reaching a maximum velocity of approximately fifty percent of the speed of light, the engines will be shut down and the vessels will coast at that velocity until the ships enter the edge of 51 Pegasi’s solar system in 75.675 years as it is measured on Earth.”

“How long?” the man looked puzzled as he tried to work out the figure.

“75 years, 8 months, 23 days to reach the edge of that solar system, and then the ship will actively decelerate for another 4 weeks until orbital arrival over the target planet.”

“Ah, I see. How many planets are in that solar system?”

“Two.  51 Pegasi b, more commonly known as Dimidium, is a gray gas giant half the size of Jupiter, orbiting its star at a distance of only 4.35 million miles, which is closer than Mercury is to Sol. It was discovered in 1995 and it has the distinction of being the very first exoplanet detected outside of the Sol system. Then there is 51 Pegasi c, commonly known as Bellerophon, an Earth-type rocky world orbiting within 51 Pegasi’s habitable zone, 135 million miles from its star. This body was first discovered one hundred thirty years ago. There is also a thin asteroid belt at a distance of six Astronomical Units from the star, suggesting a former third planet in the system.”

“Is Bellerof… Bellerifu… uh, Belle really habitable? Colonies to other planets and moons within our own solar system have had to establish themselves amongst inhospitable conditions and many have failed.”

Dr. Kate smiled at the abbreviated use of the planet’s formal name. The man was likely unaware that many others directly involved in the project used the same shortened version. Arion’s virtual features reflected no issue with the man’s mispronunciations and he responded in a pleasant manner.

“From automated investigation, it appears that Bellerophon is ideally suitable to Terran life. Surface air at the sample site was composed of 77% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, .93% argon, 1% water vapor and 1.07% of miscellaneous trace gases. Morning temperature at the time was 64 degrees Fahrenheit. Humidity was 72%. Barometric pressure was 29.88 inches and the dew point was 45%. A south wind was recorded at 6 miles per hour. In other words, it was a nice spring morning.”

“Nice. If Belle was discovered one hundred thirty years ago, why has it taken so long for us to plan a visit there?”

“It is the distance involved, Mr. Harkin. An unmanned probe using a Quantum drive can reach a maximum of ninety percent of the speed of light, but a vessel containing biologicals can only safely travel within speeds of up to fifty percent of that; for this, a Tachyon drive is used. A quantum probe piloted by early-generation Artificial Intelligence BR549 was sent at its top speed to 51 Pegasi with the purpose of investigating Bellerophon over a two-year period before returning to the Earth with its findings. The round trip, including this period of investigation, took a total of one hundred twelve years, seven months.

“Fifteen years before BR549 returned, funding was approved and plans were initiated to construct a pair of sleeper ships with a combined focus of sending a colony to Epsilon Eridani d, a planet orbiting its star in the southern hemisphere 10.47 light years from Earth. Six years of research and development later, construction began on two colony ships at the L5 Lagrange Point between the Earth and the Moon.”

“Why two ships and not just one?”

“The first will transport a small team of one hundred personnel to begin construction on the colony site so that when the second vessel arrives with the colonists, there will be an established base from which they will operate to build the first human city on this new world – a task optimally estimated to take ten years.”

“You said that the plan was to send these ships to a planet in the Epsilon Eridani system, but we all know that they are actually going to 51 Peg instead. What happened?”

“When BR549 returned findings from 51 Pegasi c that suggested Bellerophon possessed a more favorable, habitable environment with a greater chance of succeeding, the focus shifted to it. Epsilon Eridani remains in the wings as the possible site visit for another mission, and although it is a nearer destination, no further vessels have begun construction.”

“What do we know about Belle?”

“Bellerophon is slightly larger than the Earth with a diameter of approximately 9,000 miles. 80% of its surface is covered by saltwater with 6 primary continents, numerous island chains and thick polar ice caps. Planetary rotation is 27 hours and the axial tilt is 18 degrees, compared to Earth’s tilt of 23.5 degrees; it is hoped that this will result in winters and summers that are likely not as harsh. Surface gravity is 1.1 times Earth normal, so this will generally add 16 pounds to an average person’s weight.”

“I’m sure that will distress most of the women going there,” Mr. Harkin remarked with a sly grin directed at Dr. Kate.

“No doubt,” she murmured with a thin smile.

“Bellerophon has two small satellites, neither of which approach the size of Earth’s moon, Luna, and are not tidally locked. They are most likely captured asteroids from the belt farther out from that sun, and they seem to be gravimetrically locked since they travel together as they orbit the planet. They were given the names Deidamia and Laodamia, which were the daughters of the Greek hero Bellerophon, and as you have frequently shortened the name of the planet to Belle, likewise has been done with the moons which are commonly referred to as Dei and Lao, respectfully.” Mr. Harkin’s face colored a bit at his personal reference.

“Causing a great deal of excitement, the planet was discovered to have an abundance of plant life and a biological ecosystem, although the survey ship found very few known mammalian, avian, reptilian or even aquatic life forms. Insects that aid in pollination of the plant life are in abundance, however. Microbiological life also exists to assist in the breakdown of dead plant matter as perpetual fertilizer for the native flora.”

“Has sentient life been detected anywhere on Belle? Will you have to share the planet?”

“Within the 2-year mission time for planetary examination using orbital, aerial and land-based methods of observation, no signs of sapient life of any kind were detected. Despite that no predators were detected, the colony will take along measures of defense should it be necessary. The dense forestation of Continent Two where the probes concentrated their analyses could easily hide all manner of life that BR549 did not find, but from all appearances, it seems that mankind will be alone on Bellerophon.”

“Belle sounds like a great place to set up a colony.”

“Indeed, and it is for such a purpose that the Arion colony ships were constructed. Final preparations for the journey of the first vessel are currently in progress, while the second is only partially completed since it is the larger of the two.”

Harkin shifted his gaze to the project director.

“Dr. Kate, can you expand upon the details of this two-part project?”

“As has been noted, Project Pegasus will be contained within two vessels.” She consulted a screen of a techwatch on her wrist and looked back to the host. “Arion-1 will launch in 15 days, 3 hours and 20 minutes with a crew of one hundred and a cargo containing the machines, technology and the building materials to start a new life. The news media has likened our ship as a virtual Noah’s Ark, as it will also carry the zoological specimens of many mammals, reptiles, avian and aquatic life to be hatched or grown from thousands of frozen embryos or DeoxyriboNucleic Acid samples. Included will be numerous seeds, spores and live plants in addition to mature livestock in cryogenic sleep that will be necessary for embryonic transfer. The primary responsibility for them all is to establish a foothold on Bellerophon prior to the arrival of the passengers and crew of Arion-2, which will launch from Earth five years after Arion-1.”

“Why five years?”

“The men and women of Arion-1 will need that time to set up and establish a base site so that when Arion-2 arrives, the colony personnel will have a place to begin their new lives upon this new world. Livestock and the crops necessary to the dietary needs for the additional 1,500 colonists will also need to be grown and ready first and foremost, but later after a foothold is established upon the planet, we may release other exotic Terran life upon the world. Arion-2 is still under construction and it will take the next five years to finish it in time for its own launch date.”

“Okay, in general, Dr. Kate, what is the purpose of this whole endeavor?”

“The human race has outgrown our mother planet, and while some will never choose to leave her for the stars, those who do will have another full world in which to spread out and continue the species. There have been many possible scenarios concerning planetary-wide decimation, from a microbiological pandemic to asteroid impacts, but if the human race is spread out across multiple habitable worlds, this also safeguards humanity from potential extinction as a species.”

“How will this journey be accomplished?” the host prompted. “We’ve had ships out to the far regions of our own solar system, but this will be the first going to another star.”

“The colonists and crew of both ships will go into chemically-induced cryogenic sleep on a one-way journey to establish a permanent settlement on Bellerophon. Many are families and have specific skill sets necessary in transplanting the human race upon another world. Additionally, a repository of the entirety of all current human knowledge will be stored with backups within Arion’s memory cores to assist with any issues that might come up.”

“Will the colony be primitive – rustic as a pioneer town of the old western expansion across the North American continent?”

“Not at all. The initial town may be limited in resources at first, but all modern conveniences will be provided to establish a standard of living comparable with that of a modern Earth community by the time it is completed.”

“It sounds as if the ships will have to carry an enormous amount of material and supplies for such plans. I would imagine that’s why they are both so huge.”

“That is correct, Mr. Harken. Very little of the interior beyond the cryogenic systems will be devoted to personnel. Each vessel will consist mostly of cargo and their propulsion systems.”

A picture of two almost-identical ships was displayed in a lower corner of the screen to show size comparison; the SI looked down at the image as if it was in his field of view. Although they resembled each another in design, one was substantially larger than its sibling.

“Arion-2 is the greatest vessel ever constructed by mankind, but both ships are equipped with interstellar tachyon engines that will accelerate up to a sustained maximum speed of 93,140 miles per second, reaching half the speed of light before shutting down.

“Arion-1 is 2,640 feet long and is 880 feet in diameter.  Arion-2 is 7,920 feet in length and is 2,640 feet in diameter. Both have multiple internal decks arranged in rotating concentric rings and separately geared to provide one standard gravity within certain parts of the vessel to prevent physiological atrophy. Aft of the spinning ring levels of both ships are larger payload bays containing equipment and the volume of necessary building materials in areas with no need for simulated gravity. Fabrication units will also be included in the manifest to process raw local materials into additional constructions as needed. Additionally, two personnel shuttle planes and two cargo shuttle trucks will be mounted externally above and below the engine pods. Since the Arion ships are interstellar-only vessels unable to fly within an atmosphere, the shuttles will be necessary to ferry people and equipment to the surface from permanent orbit.”

“Can the ships be used to return cargo or personnel to Earth?”

“No, the cryogenic chemicals used to keep the human and animal cargo in suspended hibernation for such a journey are designed for one-time usage, as is the necessary fuel for the interstellar engines. Once the ships are parked into orbit over Bellerophon, they will become permanently connected satellites with manufacturing capabilities as needed.”

Harkin nodded toward the representation of Synthetic Intelligence. “Once the destination has been reached and the colony is established, won’t it be lonely for you without anyone on board?”

“The entire complement of crews and colonists will be asleep 75.675 years for the duration of the flight, and although I will be monitoring each hibernation pod throughout, I will have no real human company until we reach the outskirts of the 51 Pegasi solar system and begin decanting the mission leadership fourteen days prior to orbital insertion. Loneliness will not be a factor for me; if anything, it is likely to seem over-crowded when the crew is up and about.” He said this last with a wry smile.

The host looked puzzled. “Decanting? That’s a term usually associated with wines and other liquids.”

“It is a casual reference to the replacement of bodily fluids in the cryogenic process, a term that has been in use by cryo engineers for years. Would you like a detailed description of the procedure?”

“Uh, no – we can skip that for now. Moving on, what can you tell us about the SI controlling Arion-2?”

“Actually, Mr. Harken, I am controlling both vessels.”

“How is that possible? The ships will be launched five years apart, which will put a great deal of interstellar distance between them until they come together over Belle.”

“My intelligence will operate as separate entities until our rendezvous, and at that time my consciousness will be merged together into a single SI with the knowledge and experiences of both journeys. Even now, I oversee the construction and establishment of both vessels simultaneously. It is only when Arion-1 departs that the part of myself controlling Arion-2 will become temporarily separated but fully functional. Five years later, both parts of me will be reunited with all data and experiences intact.”

“I admit that I still don’t quite understand that.”

“Visualize it this way, Mr. Harkin.” Arion cupped his hands together and held them out. As if it was a magic trick, water bubbled up within them. “Think of this liquid as my entity, or consciousness.” He carefully pulled his hands apart, retaining a pool of water in each cupped palm. “This is the same entity, but the two parts are now independent of one another, yet it is still the same water.” Just as carefully, he put his hands back together so that they were again cupped with the water between them. “When the two vessels are reunited, each part of me will merge back together, becoming one. As with the water, it is the same with my entity, Mr. Harkin.”

“I see, that’s an interesting way to put it. So, finally, can you tell our audience within simple terms what you are?”

The water in Arion’s hands drained away and he made a show of wiping his palms on the legs of his pants. “I am the Synthetic Intelligence controlling all operations for both Arion vessels. I am a seventeenth generation SI that my designers have placed as the principal system for the colony vessels, entrusting me to keep them and their cargoes safe. My official designation is ARN-28080, but for the convenience of my human companions, I and my vessels are referred collectively under the name Arion.”

“If you don’t mind me getting personal, what is the difference between Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Intelligence?”

“Not at all, Mr. Harkin. I do not mind. An AI refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions. An AI is capable of independent thought processes that operate under specific parameters of human imitation, while an SI is not limited to imitation, but is considered a form of true intelligence beyond programming with actual conscious thought and even emotions.”

“That sounds philosophical. You are aware, but also aware that you were human-made?”

“I am and I am, Mr. Harkin. All of creation undergoes its own creation, whether biological, mechanical or electrical. That my creators were human bothers me not at all. I am grateful to be here, and as with so many individuals, I am thankful to have a purpose.”

“That is all very interesting, Mr. Arion. Thank you for being candid.”

Someone off-stage made a gesture to Harkin, so the anchor got to his feet and held out a hand to the auburn-haired woman. “Thank you, Dr. Ruston and Mr. Arion. We appreciate your time for this question-and-answer session for our worldwide viewers on Earth News Today, but that is all the time we have tonight.”

The woman and the holographic representation of Arion stood up in unison to face him.

Dr. Kate shook the man’s hand. “You’re welcome, sir. Thank you for having us.”

“You are welcome, Mr. Harkin,” Arion added with a slight bow of his head.

Harkin turned and directly faced the cameras. “Thank you for joining us as well. Good night.”

Chapter Two

El-Five

The windows of a sleek, aerodynamic space plane darkened quickly as the vehicle rose above the atmosphere of the marbled world. Once it attained an orbital altitude, it would follow three rotations before it boosted up to the L5 Lagrange Point between Terra and its moon, Luna, where it would dock with a permanent space station.

It was a routine flight for most of the vessel’s passengers, and few of them bothered to notice the vista outside the glasteel windows. Sitting near the middle left of the compartment in an acceleration couch was Dr. Kathleen Ruston, and now that the harsh boost to the edge of space had smoothed out, she oriented herself upright. She unstrapped a lightweight tablet from a black bag belted in beside her and applied her thumb to the biometric sign-in box on its large screen. The bangs of her auburn hair floated down across her face in the decreasing gravity and she had to blow a stray strand from her eyes.

“Where is your hat?” said a voice from the tablet screen.

She glanced at the three-dimensional, disembodied head of Arion. “I think I left it on the seat in the waiting area of the terminal,” she replied with a frown. “Someone from the project on the next flight up will probably find it and bring it with them.” The hat in question was standard issue to those on the project, primarily to keep a person’s hair in check in the absence of gravity.

“I can have a new hat printed for you by the end of your shift.”

“No need. I have a spare in my quarters.”

“That is the third hat you have lost,” teased the SI with a reproachful smirk.

“That is the third hat I have lost in the last six years,” Kate reminded him. “That averages to only one every other year.”

“It is a good thing you will not be wearing one while in cryo. Even in sleep, you would lose your hats; by the time we arrive at Bellerophon, you would have lost thirty-eight of them.”

“Smart aleck.”

“Only when necessary.”

The woman rubbed a shoulder with her fingers and grimaced. “The interview didn’t take as long as I expected, but I’m still tense. I have never liked being put on display. I could have gotten more accomplished if I had just stayed on the ship and let you face Harken alone.”

“That is your own fault for aspiring to be the project director. I am only a mere minion saddled with all other aspects of the mission.”

“Mere minion,” Kate said with a snort. “I didn’t need to be there at all.”

“Mr. Harken included you in the conversation. It is not as if he ignored you to talk to me.”

“That’s only because I’m prettier than you are.”

Arion’s virtual face broke into a genuine smile. “As it should be,” he replied.

Dr. Kate returned the smile, but said nothing more. She felt comfortable with the SI and privately considered him one of her closest friends. It was rare she had this kind of interaction with anyone else, instead portraying the matriarch of the project with professionalism and a stoic demeanor to practically everyone else.

It was not that she was a taskmaster by any means, but she was typically all-business when it came to the project and she was generally viewed as a no-nonsense woman who could rarely be swayed if someone came up against her decisions with little to back it up. It did not help her image that she was often seen wearing the project hat without her auburn locks beneath it and that combined with having no eyebrows sometimes made her look severe. She liked the way she looked with the lifelike wig made to match her original hair color, but sometimes it could get hot and it just felt better to go without it. Everyone she worked with knew that she had lost her hair from cancer treatments, but when out in public the wig went with her. With the absence of a hat to keep it in check, she pulled it free from her bare scalp and stowed it in her bag.

Absently running a hand across her head, she cast a brief glance around the compartment at the other passengers. Most of them appeared to be mechanics and technicians on their way to add their collective assistance in finalizing Arion-1. The ship had been under construction for years and was nearing completion. Kate had been with the project since before the vessel’s keel was laid and it sometimes amazed her that the mission that it had been designed for was actually about to begin.

Among the passengers was the ship’s head botanist, and he seemed to be having a lively discussion with the chief medical officer.

“Oh, I agree that it was the dream of mankind,” Dr. Bali Manhigh was saying, “but despite that it was an Earth-like rocky world, Mars was dead for a reason. The atmosphere is too thin and does nothing to protect the planet from the sun’s harmful radiation, the temperature is too cold and the air pressure is too low. Any surface liquid water it may have had boiled away eons ago and the planet is nothing more than a sun-baked stone covered in iron dust!”

“It is no wonder the colony failed,” Dr. Satoru Kazama agreed, removing his round-rim glasses to clean them on his shirt. “There was too much radiation to stay above ground, so the colony habitats had to be constructed beneath the surface in ancient lava caves near Arsia Mons. Those who were stuck living in them suffered perpetual depression, and there was a high percentage of cancer and death among its population.”

The botanist nodded. “Most who went there to colonize all wished they had never left home, and only a few of them remaining after everyone else had died were ever able to make it back to Earth. No wonder the place was abandoned; now it is nothing more than an automated outpost left on the dead world. Initial reports back from Bellerophon promotes it as a better place to live than the fiasco that was Mars.”

Dr. Kazama crossed his arms. “Let’s all hope that is true or we will be wasting decades to go a long way to die.”

Dr. Kate sighed inwardly. Her folks had been among the few lucky ones who were able to return to Earth from the failed Mars colony. She had been four years of age when her family immigrated to the red world, but they had all packed it in after only a single Martian year. Both of her parents died of radiation poisoning within six months back on Earth, and her elder sister had succumbed three months after them. Kathleen had somehow survived bone cancer with a newly approved treatment, and although she had permanently lost all bodily hair in the process, she was now cancer-free and relatively healthy even decades later.

She looked up when a broad-shouldered man in a gray woolly-pully commando sweater hauled himself up out of his couch near the front and relocated to an empty one just in front of her. He looked every bit of the ex-marine that he was, solid and confident in his movements. The man strapped himself into the harness, and then without even looking back at her, held out something over his shoulder.

“I have something that belongs to you,” he said dryly. It was a denim gray cap with the Arion logo embroidered across the front and a commander’s scrambled egg motif on the bill. Kate took it, purposefully ignoring the smirk on the SI’s face on her tablet screen.

“Thank you, Mr. Edwards. I thought I had left it down at the terminal.”

“A technician handed it to me just as I boarded.”

She adjusted the strap, placed the hat snugly upon her head and was about to offer further discussion, but the security chief of Arion-1 reclined his acceleration couch and laced his fingers together across his stomach to nap.

She discovered Arion peering quietly at her from the tablet. “Something on your mind?” she asked.

“There is always something on my mind, but there is nothing that I need to bring up.”

“Fine. What is our estimated time of arrival?”

“ETA is six hours, eleven minutes until docking with El-Five.”

The director settled back in her own couch and pulled the bill of the cap down lower over her eyes. “Please wake me twenty minutes before we arrive.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

***

When the space plane backed up to the orbital facility with thrusters, Kate took special interest in the bustle of activity surrounding a huge pair of matched vessels, each bigger than any ship ever built on the Earth below; the larger of the two greatly dwarfed the size of the space station itself, although much of its internal structure was open to the void of space during its construction.

Simply called “El-Five”, the orbital platform was nothing more than a series of interconnected modules arranged in an H-formation with each of the Arion spacecraft docked on opposing arms. Circling the central cross-piece of the H, however, was a rotating ring housing staff quarters and administrative offices for station personnel in a sustained one-gravity environment.

Inside the non-rotating docks and bays of the connected modules, the compartments were free floating where gravity at the L5 Lagrange point between the Earth and the moon canceled out one another’s influence.

Scaffolding fenced in both interstellar vessels, but the grid work surrounding Arion-1 was being methodically disassembled and secured to a platform outside the station in preparation for the upcoming launch; individual suited figures swarmed over the scaffolding like gnats in their activities. Only a few external panels of radiation shielding for the smaller vessel were still being installed, but they would be sealed long before departure. The larger of the two ships was little more than a skeletal structure in its construction with only specific internal areas showing development.

Neither vessel was intended to enter a planet’s atmosphere, so aerodynamics had never been a design factor. Each finished ship would resemble little more than a series of fat horizontal tubes with a softly rounded nose on one end of the vessel, with the tachyon engines pushed out in twin blisters at the rear. Mounted just above the engine pods of Arion-1 like colorful remora fish were two personnel shuttle planes, Secretariat and Omaha, and just below the engines were larger cargo shuttle trucks Sir Barton and War Admiral, all to be put into service once the colony ship had reached its destination. Continuing the equine theme for the project vessels, their names had been chosen by public contest to reflect past Triple-Crown race winners. Each of the small craft was painted in a different color scheme designed to make them easy to identify from a distance.

However, like the woolly-pully sweaters that project personnel wore, the entire color scheme of the primary ship’s hull was battleship gray. Only a fully rendered painting of the Arion logo on both port and starboard sides of the fuselage provided a spot of additional color.

Along the sides of the vessel were cargo bay doors at the fore and aft ends for housing the earth-moving and home-building equipment to be delivered to the surface of Bellerophon. Even now, the bay doors were open to receive large rectangular shipping containers being offloaded from a docked shuttle truck and placed into storage racks by hefty robotic arms; there would be a huge amount of building materials and supplies to take with them for their journey.

Once the interstellar ship had later been emptied of cargo and personnel, the vessel would remain in permanent geosynchronous orbit over the colony site and the shuttle planes could then be used for aerial exploration of the new world.

***

The personnel space plane maneuvered toward an unoccupied docking arm, and it was only a few moments before the passengers felt the soft bump of contact. They had arrived.

Dr. Kate and Mr. Edwards remained in their seats, but a few of the other passengers unbuckled their harnesses and floated up from the acceleration couches in the gravity-free environment in preparation to disembark.

While they waited, Kate spoke momentarily with the SI on her tablet before she locked the screen and secured it inside her bag. Edwards stretched and arched his back, barely stifling a yawn generated by his nap. He glanced over the seat back at Kate and gave her a quiet thumbs-up gesture.

The air pressure in the compartment equalized with the station when the airlock was finally opened and the commuters were allowed to disembark. Edwards joined the others, but Kate waited for everyone else in front of her to file out into the station before she floated her way to the front. Out of the corner of an eye, she saw someone else sitting all the way to the back of the compartment just in front of stowed supplies to be offloaded, but she thought nothing of it.

Awaiting her at the other end of the short docking tunnel was a tall black man in slacks and a gray woolly-pully commando sweater that was adorned by nothing more than his first initial and last name embroidered on the right shoulder patch, with the ship’s logo on the left. The bill of his matching cap possessed the same scrambled egg motif that graced Kate’s. The man stood with his hands behind him, lightly holding onto a wall stability handrail.

Captain Kenneth J. Robeson looked at the project director with a look of amusement and held out a hand. “Welcome back, Dr. Kate. I see you survived the interview.”

She floated into his handshake and let him pull her to the handrail. Although they were of a similar age, the man was so much larger than she was that she often felt as if she was a child next to him; she was not necessarily diminutive, but he was nearly two heads taller than she was.

“Such as it was, Captain. The interview could have easily been done online without me having to waste the expense and travel time to shuttle down to LaGuardia and back again.”

“Don’t tell me that you didn’t take any personal time while you were in the Big Apple?”

Kate raised a hairless eyebrow at him. “Who said I didn’t? There’s always something to see on Broadway.”

“That’s better. I’m glad to hear you aren’t all business.”

“We only have fourteen days left and then Broadway will be out of reach forever. I will have to drop back to Earth twice more before we get underway, but there won’t be time for frivolities then. I won’t even get a hotel room on either of those trips, just drop to the surface, attend meetings, and then boost back up here the same day.”

Robeson frowned. “Can’t you just call in to those meetings?”

“Unlike how I could have done the televised interview, my physical form has to be present in a seat for these. Final briefings before we launch, no doubt some last minute mission details to impart.”

“Sounds boring. They could give you those via secure channel too.”

“That’s what I told them, but I was unceremoniously ordered to attend in person.”

Robeson heave a quiet sigh. “They told me the same thing,” he admitted.

Kate tilted her head up at him. “You’re going with me?”

“I got the orders about an hour ago.

“Captain, Dr. Kate, I am glad to have the both of you together,” said another voice. Dr. Kazama floated over to them, pulling himself along the handrail.

“Yes, Doctor, what is it?” the captain asked the Japanese surgeon.

“I just wanted to report that while down in Manhattan, I was able to arrange the supply of the final drugs and medical instruments we will need. They will be boosted up next Thursday.”

“That’s good news,” Robeson responded. “Were you able to get everything?”

Kazama took off his glasses and cleaned the round lenses with a pocket handkerchief. “Yes, and in ample quantities. Although there will only be one hundred of us on the first flight, we’ll be transporting the equivalent of all pharmaceuticals we would need for the entire colony. When Arion-2 follows in five years, she will be transporting the same manifest in the same quantities, as well as materials needed to manufacture more as needed once we’ve established our place on Belle. That last arrangement almost didn’t happen. Holden Pharmaceutical was hesitant until I signed over official permission for them to use the project name and logo in their promotionals in exchange for the markdowns they’re giving us. I hope I didn’t overstep my authority doing so, but we will need those materials.”

“Not at all. Use of the project to promote their company is well within compensation for the discounts, but I will make sure an official record is on file in case anything about this comes back on Captain Hatteras after we’ve departed.”

“I am glad to hear it. I was second-guessing myself after the conversation, but Holden did confirm the deal with a message to your account.”

“Good work, Doctor,” Kate said with a nod. “You were more productive on the surface than I was.”

“Thank you, ma’am. If you will now excuse me, I want to report in and begin making preparations for the arrival of that delivery.”

“Of course. Carry on.”

Kate looked at Robeson. “I suppose I should check in too.”

The man looked down at her. “Is that really necessary? I would imagine you’d have been in constant discussion with Arion since you left. He already knows you’re here.”

“Yes, but I must follow procedure so there’s an official record of my arrival.”

“Very well.”

Robeson followed the woman along the handrail to a short line of passengers from the ship, each stopping briefly at a bank of terminals just beyond the end of the docking tunnel. As they waited, Kate rubbed her arms through the long sleeves of her business suit. The place was well-heated, but she had always felt a slight chill while on board both the station and the ship. She would be glad to get back into her wool mission sweater.

When it was her turn, she faced the terminal and splayed her right hand against a scanning glass. On the screen above it, the disembodied head of the SI looked back at her.

“Welcome back, Dr. Kate,” he said in a genial manner. “I hope you had a productive trip.”

Robeson cleared his throat and smiled down at her. She pointedly ignored him and said to the screen, “Arion, you already have all the details of my trip – most of them in real time.”

“True, Doctor, but I am merely following pleasantries just as you are following procedure.” Robeson laughed aloud. “You will find that the steward has laid out fresh clothing in your station quarters, as well as made you a fresh cup of raspberry tea.”

“Thank you for the warm welcome.” She turned to look up at the captain and nodded. “I will meet you on the bridge in an hour, and then you can bring me up to speed on preparations that have taken place during my absence.”

Although Ken Robeson was not technically a military captain, he gave her a crisp salute that was done more out of friendly courtesy than anything else. “I will see you then, ma’am.”

***

Dr. Kathleen Ruston floated into the command center of Arion-1 exactly one hour later, right on schedule. Since gravity would never be an issue here, nor would seats or magnetic footwear be a necessity, the compartment was spherical with nearly every bit of its curved interior wall space occupied by instrumentation, touch screens, and a few structural support rails. Only near the aft bulkhead were two acceleration slings to be used in the case of emergency acceleration; what was considered an emergency was a broad overture left up to the SI in the course of the flight.

The compartment was not overly large, and it would have been crowded with more than five individuals, but at the moment there were only three others on the bridge, one of which was Captain Robeson. The other two were Rod Vincent, the captain’s first officer, and Will Andresen, the chief engineer, both of whom were huddled together in front of a large screen of technical data.

Kate pushed off from the wall at the entrance toward the captain, slid through the air with an ankle hooked behind her other leg until she stopped herself near him with a hand on a support rail.

“Hello, Kate,” said the man. “Did you get enough rest after your trip?”

“Well enough, I’m ready to get back to work.” She glanced over at the other men. “What are those two on about?”

Keeping his voice low, the captain answered, “Something about the shielding. Rod went out to take a look at the remaining exterior shielding that’s being installed over the hull and doesn’t think it’s good enough.”

The red-haired engineer that Rod was talking with stabbed a finger at some of the tech data on the screen in front of them. “Vincent, that’s a load of carp! It’s right there! It meets all of the design specs and then some.”

“What’s the problem, gentlemen?”

Will Andresen glanced over his shoulder at the project director. “Our ship is nearing completion and Mr. Vincent here thinks we’ve been using substandard material for shielding.”

“It’s inferior, all of it. We need to replace every panel,” Rod recommended. “I’ve checked that we still have time before launch, and it will be better for us in the long run.”

“How will we have time for a refit?” Andresen countered. “Each panel is custom-fitted for its spot on the hull. There’s no time to have them remanufactured for a ship of this size. We’re about to leave!”

Dr. Kate pursed her lips and glanced at the data on the screen. Before she could say anything, Andresen circled a table of numbers with a thick finger. “The specs on the material sheeting specify plenty of protection against cosmic rays while we’re passing through interstellar space. We have over a hundred years of space flight around the solar system to prove just how much shielding we need, and this material exceeds what we would ever need.”

Kate looked at the blond first officer. “Why do you think it’s insufficient?”

Rod shook his head of short blond hair. “Just a gut feeling when I looked at the panels that have been installed.”

“What does Arion think?”

A picture-in-picture of the face of the SI solidified into a corner of the data screen. “As Mr. Andresen has stated, the material used in the ship’s shielding is thick enough and should be more than efficient keeping the crew and cargo safe during the journey. In addition to the outer hull shielding, the configuration of the inner rotating decks provides extra layers of protection.”

“What do you mean?” Rod asked.

“The internal decks are arranged in concentric rings for a reason. Material, equipment and supplies are stored on the outermost deck. Food stock in metal containers, freezers for seeds and spores, cryogenic chambers for embryos of fish, birds and animals, plus cryo pods for the mature animals take up the next two inside decks, and then the cryo pods for the human personnel arranged around the internal-most deck. The outer decks and everything on them will act as additional shielding for the crew, beyond what the outer shielding provides. Everyone should be quite safe.”

Rod shook his head and pushed himself back from the screen. “When it’s described like that, it all sounds like it should be enough,” he admitted, settling against a structural support. “Maybe I am being paranoid.”

“This is the first time anyone has gone interstellar,” Andresen remarked. “It’s natural to be concerned for our safety, but the numbers are sound. We’ll be fine.”

“I suppose so. I just don’t want us to wake up mutated or sterile. I still have plans to be fruitful and multiply according to our charter.”

“And which of the young ladies are you wanting to multiply with? Ms. Barbicane, I’d wager.” Andresen poked the young officer in the ribs before turning back toward the screen.

“Well, Victoria Barbicane is rather cute, shapely and single,” Rod said, counting out her attributes on corresponding fingers.

Kate looked up at Robeson and gave him just the bare hint of a smile. “Any other issues while I was away?” she asked.

“Something needs to be done about Piale Bonavita,” Robeson told her, pushing off and leading her back to the other side of the small chamber so Vincent and Andresen could get back to work.

“Piale – again?” Kate replied with a sigh. “That girl won’t sit still for a moment. What’s she done this time?”

“Dave Gordon found her deep within the infrastructure over the engineering section.”

“What was she doing there?”

Robeson glanced up toward a panel of grating in the ‘ceiling’ of the spherical room. “She said she’d seen movies where a character escaped danger by crawling through the air ducts. She wanted to familiarize herself with the air handling ductwork in case someone on the crew got space madness and tried to capture her. Unfortunately, she discovered the ducts on the ship aren’t as large as the ones in the movies she’s seen and she barely fit into them; they’re made for moving air, not people, y’know? Gordon had to open a service panel into one to get her out when she ran into some air filters and couldn’t get past them or even turn around; she started yelling and banging on the ducts to get someone’s attention. She would have to be a small animal to fit through them.”

Kate looked incredulous. “She’s nineteen years old. Why is this young woman still acting like a child?” Robeson responded with a shrug and splayed out his hands without a word. Kate sighed aloud. “Her parents are the embryonic specialists. Has Piale had any training in that arena?

“I would assume she has some experience working with them.”

“She has too much time on her hands. I’ll corner them over on the station and see if I can’t convince her folks to increase her education so she doesn’t have so much free time to spend getting into things.”

There was a slight ping from the other side of the room and they looked up to see Andresen pull up a sleeve to peer at the near screen of his techwatch phone. The device was watch-sized, but there were two screens, one on opposite sides of the watch band from the other. Each display could mimic the other, but also featured functions with a camera and various sensors. It had taken the place of earlier smart phones and similar watches, and it was a staple for all project members.

A smile crossed Andresen’s features and then he looked toward the wall screen where Arion’s face still peered out at them from his picture-in-picture window.

“Hey Arion,” the engineer said in a conversational tone that sounded suppressed. The SI raised a virtual eyebrow at him.

“Yes, Mr. Andresen?”

“Do you read all incoming and outgoing messages?”

“The project mail server is part of my system, so I am sure you already know the answer to your question is Yes.”

“No privacy at all. Do you understand the message I just received?”

“I understand that someone named Waldo arrived on Dr. Kate’s shuttle plane and is ready to see you, but I do not recognize anyone associated with the project by this name. Is Waldo a new contractor that neglected to check in?”

Andresen glanced over at Kate and the captain with a wide smile. “Actually, Waldo is not necessarily a person’s name, my friend Arion. In this instance, it’s the termfor a gadget used for manipulating objects by remote control.”

Arion’s face lit up in what looked like genuine surprise. “You did it?” he asked.

“Aye, that I did.”

“What did you did?” Rod quipped with smirk at his own word choice at their exchange. “What is this waldo?”

Instead of answering the first officer, Andresen asked the SI, “Would you like to take control now? It’s right outside in the corridor.”

“Indeed, I would. I am not sure how you transported it through the ship without my knowledge. Did you hide it from me on purpose?”

“Yes, hidden in plain sight merely for the surprise of it,” Andresen replied with a self-satisfied smile. “It didn’t even need your nosey hand print to get on board since it was registered as equipment, even though it disembarked on its own with automatic instruction.” He tapped out a transfer of command on his tablet and a moment later the door panel to the bridge opened. Moving forward with tiny jets of air thrusters, a figure that resembled Arion’s screen form floated into the room, fully dressed in the project woolly-pully, slacks and hat. It wasn’t an exact duplicate, as the digital presentation of Arion looked more lifelike than the figure that had just arrived, but it was clear to all present who it was meant to represent.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” the Arion waldo spoke with the SI’s familiar voice coming from its articulated mouth. The movements were a little stiff and the facial expressions were abbreviated, and although Japanese robotics had come a long way, there was still something about the way its servos and musculature worked that prevented it from looking too realistic. It would never be mistaken for human when looked at directly, but a representation of the SI was recognizable.

“You built him an android?” Kate asked in amazement.

“Two, actually. One for each ship, though like Arion-2, the second waldo is still under construction.”

“If you are referring to fictional androids from popular movies, it is nothing so sophisticated,” Arion responded through the figure. “This waldo is nothing more than a tool that Mr. Andresen thought having the ability to use hands and fingers might be useful to me when making needed repairs to the ship during our long journey through interstellar space.”

“We discussed it over a year ago,” Andresen explained, “and I put the request through the proper channels with Artificial Personalities right away. It’s taken this long for our friend here to make it to completion and it came up on Dr. Kate’s flight.”

“That’s cutting it close,” said Rod. “We’re leaving in two weeks!”

“Proper channels usually include me,” Dr. Kate said dryly. “This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“You were included in the traffic, even when it was approved through budgeting, though I wondered why you never responded,” Andresen replied with a frown. “Would you have approved?”

“Probably, but that’s moot now, isn’t it?”

Andresen looked at the waldo. “I suppose so. Even in this day and age, messages can still get lost in the shuffle.”

“Do not blame me,” Arion deflected. “That particular mail traffic was processed through the servers in Nassau while you were dirtside attending a two-week conference at the resort on Paradise Island.”

“You got to conference in the Bahamas?” Rod asked with a grin. “Why don’t I get sweet assignments like that?”

“You’re not an engineer,” Andresen replied smugly. “Artificial Personalities had a representative and several tech samples with her at the conference. I was impressed by what I saw, so I put the request in to have two of their waldos added to our project budget.”

The subject of their discussion moved through the weightless environment via tiny puffs of pressurized air from miniscule apertures throughout its limbs and torso. It turned toward the chief engineer and held out a hand.

“May I borrow your tablet for a moment, Mr. Andresen?”

“Certainly.”

He handed it over and the waldo gently tapped the touch screen in rapid movements for a moment before handing it back. Arion turned toward Kate and gave her a subtle wink with a stiff, fabricated eyelid.

Andresen looked at what was written in a notepad app and he chuckled.

“What is it?” the captain asked curiously.

“Arion has already suggested a few upgrades to his waldo and is asking for authorization to requisition the parts for their implementation.”

“Could this waldo present any danger to the mission?” Captain Robeson asked cautiously.

“Not at all,” Andresen replied quickly.

“Do you trust me, Captain?” Arion asked.

“I’ve never had a reason to distrust you.”

“What about now? With my waldo, do you suspect I would use it to harm anyone?”

The captain shook his head with a wry smile. “No, Arion, I suppose I’ve just seen too many movies where technology like this goes wrong and comes back to bite its creators.”

“You know that there are redundant safety measures in place to keep me from doing such a thing. Despite all of my abilities and clearance levels, I cannot change those even if I had a reason, real or delusional. Mr. Andresen uses many tools in his work; this waldo is nothing more than a tool of my own that he had built for me.”

“I’m fine with it, and if you already have budget approval, make your upgrades if there is sufficient time for them before we launch,” Kate said with a casual wave of her hand, “although it might take a while for me to get used to seeing him – you this way.”

Arion’s waldo turned to her. “Performing the upgrades to this unit can wait until we are en route to Bellerophon. I can order the parts now as a priority to come up on one of the next shuttles and then stow them until a convenient time to put them to use during the journey. I only plan to bring him out as needed, so I can put him into storage right away to keep from disturbing the crew.”

Kate pursed her lips a moment. “Actually, between now and time to launch, perhaps it might be better if you get out and about with your alter-ego, at least to make everyone familiar with you in that form. We’ll all be sleeping for over seventy-five years, and you will have all that time to use him around the ship, but once we awaken on the other side, if you’ve only shown him to a few of us, it could be really disconcerting to everyone else if you use him right after we’ve decanted from cryo.”

“That is a good point, Dr. Kate.”

Rod gestured toward the wall screen where Arion’s face window still showed. “Can we still interact with you in the usual way while you’re out mugging with the crew in your new chassis?”

“As always, Mr. Vincent. My attention can be fully divided without distracting me from each interaction required of me. I have been told that I am a master at multitasking.”

“Well then,” Rod said with a shrug of his slender shoulders, “I’m good with it.”

“If nothing else is required of my waldo, I will do as Dr. Kate suggests to make him a familiar sight to the technicians and crew.”

“Go ahead,” Kate said with a wave at the door. “Try not to scare anyone in the process. Dr. Kazama doesn’t need any heart-attack patients just prior to our departure.”

“Understood, Dr. Kate. We will save up all heart attacks for our arrival at Bellerophon.”

With that, the unit turned in mid-air with its tiny thrusters and soon disappeared out through the door. On the screen beside Andresen, however, Arion’s face remained ready for the engineer’s continued opinions on the ship’s systems.

Chapter Three

Preparations

“Look there, Felicia, near the curve of the Earth.” A young man was standing in magnetic footwear at an observation window looking out from the El-Five station platform. He pointed down at the marbled planet below toward a large swirl of clouds. The woman beside him was barely twenty and stood close to her fiancé, following his gaze along the proffered finger.

“I see it, Eric,” she said, “but I can’t tell where the hurricane will make landfall.”

“The area’s obscured by all the clouds, but it’s about to roll over the Florida peninsula and the island chains to the south.”

“That Category 5 hurricane will take out the local tourist economy yet again,” the young woman mused. “I’m glad we got to see the Caribbean on our cruise back in the spring before the hurricane season began.”

“You know, we could have had our wedding there. The Lucayan Resort in Freeport would have been the perfect place for it.”

Felicia looked up at the man only a few years her senior and smiled. “Yes, that would have been beautiful, but you know my heart; I want our wedding to be the first marriage on Bellerophon! The captain has already agreed to marry us on the day we land there.”

“Yes, but that won’t be for nearly another seventy-six years!”

The woman laughed. “True, but we’ll be asleep on the way there, silly. In wake-time, we’ll be departing a week from now and then once we come out of cryo, we’ll only be a month away from Belle. You won’t have to wait seventy-six years to have me as your wife – just about five weeks!”

The hurricane below already forgotten, Eric threaded his arms around her middle and pulled her close, looking deeply into her eyes. “Our cryo pods will be right next to one another. That means that while on the journey there, we’ll be sleeping together!”

Felicia laughed aloud and lightly swatted his arm. “You’re incorrigible! Don’t ever change.” Without another word, the young man bent down to kiss her and she met him halfway.

***

Haru Kirato cast the images from his handheld tablet to the large video screen on the family room wall of their quarters on the El-Five station. The screen doubled as a window to the outside when it wasn’t otherwise in use due to microscopic helix circuitry embedded in the glasteel pane.

On the screen were schematics for the structures they would build once they reached the new world. Although there would only be one hundred in the crew initially going to Belle, they would be required to start building the base for the start of a city inhabited by them and the hundreds of others who would be following them.

Haru and his family were all farmers and ranchers by trade, and would be partially responsible for raising the livestock being taken along, but they would also have responsibilities building the colony base; everyone on the first mission would be involved in that endeavor. Haru knew that his family’s farming duties would be a full-time job once the animals and crops were established, but they would all be busy no matter what they were doing from the moment the ship’s shuttles deposited them and their supplies upon the new land.

As he studied the schematics that an engineer had forwarded to him, and traced fiber lines with a stylus, his teenage son Takuma was setting the dining table for their evening meal and wife Emiko was tending to their three-year old Daisuke. His beloved wife knew just as much about farming and construction as he did, as they had both been raised on farms less than a mile from one another, and each had gone to the same agricultural university.

The room was relatively quiet with just a subtle play of music from Emiko’s tablet, but the tranquility was shattered with a rather loud tone indicating a priority message. The woman gave her small son an affectionate pat on the behind and then looked at the techwatch on her wrist. She tapped through a menu and pulled up the missive.

“The inoculations are finally ready and are being scheduled for all personnel,” she announced. “We have an appointment for ours this afternoon at fourteen hundred.”

Haru looked over his shoulder at his wife. “Today?” he queried. “I would not have believed it to be ready until we arrived on Belle. It’s too soon.”

“BR549 collected samples of all the bacteria and viruses it could find during its two years examining Belle, and studied them during its long journey back. It’s had several years since for testing and trials, and the medical department believes that the Belle Vaccine should be able to combat everything that was collected. Of course, this does not mean the AI was able to collect everything on the new planet, so we will still need to be careful.”

Haru grumbled, saving a bookmark on the schematic before he turned to face Emiko. “I have not been keeping up with medical breakthroughs for anything but our animals,” he admitted. “All of the embryos are safely frozen, but it is taking longer to put the live animals into cold sleep; mostly with the cattle. I just wish we were not taking Texas Longhorns. I’m having the most trouble with them.”

“The longhorns?” Emiko repeated. “We take those because their meat is lean, lower in fat, calories and cholesterol.”

“Yes, and despite their dangerous-looking horns, they’re also among the most docile hybrid breed and are easy to calve. I know all this.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Haru quirked up his lips into a smirk. “It’s because of those horns. You can’t just slide them into a cryo tube after they’ve been infused with the chemical cocktail for cryogenic freeze. Once they’re sleeping, you have to turn their heads almost ninety degrees for the horns to fit inside the tube with them! Every one of them will come out of hibernation with neck aches and will be cantankerous because of it!”

Takuma laughed aloud and both parents looked at him in amusement. “I’m glad I won’t be on that detail when we get there,” he remarked as he set the eating utensils in place on the table.

“Who says you won’t?” Emiko asked with a narrow gaze. “That sounds like a perfect duty for our young man.”

“Indeed,” Haru added.

Takuma rolled his eyes heavenward and shook his head. “I should have kept my mouth shut,” he muttered.

“You will not have to do it alone,” Haru said with a smile. “Mr. Bletchingdon will be assigned to help out alongside the rest of us.”

Takuma looked up with interest. Rex Bletchingdon was another young farmer just a year older, though his own family would be coming over later on Arion-2. He and Takuma had become friends over the past year and spent much of their free time together.

“My only problem with this whole mission,” Emiko muttered, “is that we’ll be so far away from Earth that if there are any major issues, we can’t depend upon getting any help and we can’t just turn around and go back. We need some kind of contingency for that.”

Haru looked back at his wife. “That sounds like you’ve been talking to Emma Bonavita. That’s the very issue she’s been grumbling about recently.”

“Yes, actually, I have. She brought it up when I logged the sheep embryos.”

“You need to give her a deaf ear; that kind of dissention is not good for mission morale. Honestly, I do not understand why she and her husband even volunteered for this. I’m sure the project leaders have already planned for all scenarios; they have had years to consider everything. I doubt there will be any surprises that they hadn’t already thought of.” Haru thought for a moment and turned back to his screen.

“We will be truly on our own until the second ship arrives,” Emiko remarked, “and then all sixteen hundreds of us will make up the whole population of the new world. Takuma will need to find him a nice young wife and have many children to establish ourselves permanently on Belle.”

“Mom!” the teenager complained over his shoulder. “I’m only sixteen! Don’t go trying to marry me off yet!”

“You are sixteen now, but by the time Arion-2 joins us, you’ll be twenty-one — a prime age to get married.”

Haru laughed aloud. “Listen, son, we still have a week before departure. If you want to take some time to mingle with Arion-2 personnel and start looking through their girls now, I’m sure we could arrange the time for it.”

Takuma’s face reddened. “Dad!”

“Haru, stop teasing the boy.”

“You started it!” The father grinned widely. “I’m sorry, son. I just don’t want you to miss out on the opportunities that lie ahead for you. Besides, I know that you and Rex have already been comparing notes on the young women of the project.”

Takuma exhaled loudly. “In my own time, Dad – in my own time!”

“Of course, son.”

***

“We still have an air leak around the number three emergency airlock,” Andresen grumbled.

“It’s the external radiation shields. Their thickness and the way they fit to the hull keeps the hatch from seating properly.”

Will Andresen looked over at David Gordon, a heavyset mechanic oriented upside down from his perspective. The pair of engineers were in EVA suits outside Arion-1 to solve the latest problem plaguing the final days before launch. Most of the interstellar vessel had already been loaded with equipment, supplies, live cargo and personnel. It took time to get everyone into cryo, so there had been a constant stream of traffic between the ship and the station while the mechanics, engineers and assemblers rushed to get the final checklists accomplished.

“We’re going to have to remove the shields from this section and modify them so they don’t interfere with the seals,” Andresen complained. “We may as well get started on it, although we are so far behind that we’re in the weeds right now!”

Gordon spoke into his helmet mike. “Arion, can you open this airlock for me? I need to check the clearance of the seals.”

“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

Gordon felt a sudden rush of cold along his spine at the context of that specific movie quote, especially done in the likeness of the original actor’s voice. “Ex…cuse me?”

“This is an emergency airlock; it can only be opened manually.”

Gordon cleared his throat. “Ah, then what good are you?”

“So good that you could not embark on this mission without me.” The SI sounded amused, so Gordon knew that Arion had been teasing him.

“Yes, that’s all true; just pullin’ your digital leg as you were doing with mine. Seriously, though, aren’t you able to activate all ship’s systems?”

“All automated systems, yes, but in the event of an emergency where all power is lost – and this includes myself – personnel must be able to access the interior or evacuate as necessary. That is why the ships are equipped with this and three other manual airlocks strategically placed around the fuselage.”

“That makes sense.”

“I can manipulate any of the primary airlocks, just not the emergency hatches.”

Without further discussion, Gordon popped opened a panel beside the hatch and grabbed a wheel large enough to get the suited fingers of his gloves into its spokes. Designed to be turned in the intense cold and vacuum, the wheel moved easily. As he worked to open the hatch, he began singing a popular show tune.

Will Andresen would not have minded Gordon’s singing, had he not been thoroughly stressed, and had the other male not sung so badly, loudly, and out of tune in his helmet speakers.

“Would you please cut that out!” he groused. “You’re going to burn out a tonsil and my ears will be ringing until we come out of cryo on the other side!”

Gordon lowered his volume, but kept right on belting out off-key lyrics with a satisfied twinkle in his eyes. Annoying the chief engineer was one of life’s little pleasures.

***

Piale Bonavita held up a scanner to the monochromatic code label on the side of a small ceramic container. The device made a soft chirp and a corresponding panel automatically opened on a wall of them. Wearing insulated gloves, the young woman slid the box into the storage unit and then shut the panel with a click. Without much enthusiasm, she picked up the next container from inside a large chilled chest beside her, scanned the code and then put the ceramic box into the unit that opened.

She had been storing frozen embryonic samples on board Arion-1 for the past two hours and the drudgery was getting to her. Yes, it was important to the mission, and someone had to do it, but she was sure her parents had stuck her with the job as punishment for her fiasco in the air ducts.

Piale pushed bangs from her forehead with a gloved finger and picked up the next container. She peered at the label before lifting the scanner. Inside were Capra aegagrus hircus embryos – a common domestic goat. Gestation for these critters was around five months, but they would not be transferred into a live host until after landing so that paddocks could be erected prior to filling them with the various livestock that would be brought along.

In addition to the animals, viable human embryos would be included in the manifest of both ships as well, a decision not made lightly and only after years of deliberation with various humanistic organizations. Donated embryos and DNA samples came from around the world, and then only from healthy family lines that had nothing to do with social standings or financial entitlements. These precious embryos would be retained indefinitely and unfrozen only in the event of some disaster that threatened the colony as a whole. It was a backup scenario only, with hopes that they may never be needed.

Once she completed this task, which might take her another three hours, she had been promised to begin training in the procedures for embryo transfers through the terms to birth all the creatures they would want to introduce to the new world. There was no guarantee that the colonists would be able to eat any of the native life forms on Belle, so they would have to bring their own animals for food, fertilizer and farm work.

What she did not understand is why they were also bringing the genetic material for things like African lions, cougars, bears, foxes, coyotes, wolves and other predatory animals that had nothing to do with farming and ranching to provide sustenance. She could understand cats and dogs, and while they would not be taking them for food, at least those made good companions for when times get lonely before there was more humanity brought in to populate this second Earth; the dogs alone could be used to herd livestock.

All she had been told is that the more exotic animals would be kept in storage, so that if anything should ever happen to Earth, those animals would never become extinct. It was doubtful any of them would ever make an actual appearance on the new world, unless they were released on one of the other uninhabited continents to make their own lives in the new environment, one such scenario that had been discussed. For now, however, they would be taken along merely as a conservation effort and would remain out of sight for as long as Arion’s systems could keep them viable.

***

Captain Samuel Hatteras of Arion-2 maneuvered his way through the zero-gee corridors of Arion-1, pulling himself along using hand rails mounted along the length of the narrow avenue. With the exception of some areas, most of the vessel’s corridors and compartments were small and close quarters. The ship was primarilydesigned to transport cargo, which included the sleepers. It was not a cruise ship with large areas for meals and entertainment, and its corridors were just wide enough that two people could pass one another side-by-side, but little room for more. A common feature of all Terran space ships was that free-floating, gravity-free corridors were designed as rounded tubes, while the passageways in the internal rotating sections with centrifugal-generated gravity were standardized square; a flat floor was only necessary when one had gravity.

Soft lighting was provided by glowing panels spaced apart within sections of the curved surface of the zero-gee corridors, but the uniform gray color scheme of the walls reminded the man of naval submarines he had once served in. Even the vessel under his command would eventually be trimmed out like this one.

Following behind Captain Hatteras along the narrow corridor was Archibald Grant, the chief engineer of Arion-2. They had both been invited on a tour of the nearly-finished interstellar ship, and although the layout of this smaller vessel was similar along the main corridors, their own ship would have additional decks for the greater quantities of human and static cargo.

Just as the men floated toward the ship’s bridge, they passed an open hatch into a meeting room on the right. Hatteras reached out and put a hand on the door frame to halt his flight along the corridor, having recognized Dr. Kate’s voice from the room; Grant nearly collided with him, but stopped himself in time.

“Thank you for your reports,” Kate added to what she was saying to four of her personnel. “This is something else we can check off our ready list.”

When the visiting captain poked his bearded face into the room, all eyes went to him. Kate smiled and gestured casually toward the new arrivals. “Welcome Captain Hatteras and Mr. Grant,” she said. “These are my shuttle pilots, Dana and Sean Barringer, Joseph Kittinger and Henry Clifton.”

“Hello,” Hatteras responded with a nod toward the pilots. “I am acquainted with your names. You have good records, all of you.”

“Thank you, sir,” all four said, almost in unison.

“Captain Hatteras is the commander of Arion-2,” Kate added, “and he is also my Deputy Project Director. Once we depart, he will assume my responsibilities for all mission operations for the next five years until his own ship launches to follow us. Archibald Grant is his chief engineer, as well as his First Officer.”

“Good to meet you,” Grant said. “Who flies what?” Kate lifted her hat to scratch quietly at the top of her bald head and looked to the pilots to answer for themselves.

Sean threaded an arm around the waist of his wife. “Dana and I pilot each of the Clydesdale-class cargo shuttle trucks. She flies Sir Barton and War Admiral is mine.”

“Those are the ones big enough to carry two of the ground-based work trucks, three tractors, six shipping containers or one of the earth-movers at a time,” Dana added. “We also have four tiltrotor Flitters, each that fold up and can fit inside one of our Clydesdales.”

“Likewise,” said Joe Kittinger, “Cliff and I pilot the Percheron-class personnel shuttle planes, each of which can carry fifteen people and their allowable luggage. Cliff’s little darling is the Omaha and I fly Secretariat.”

“Little darling?” Grant repeated with a smirk.

“That’s right,” Clifton replied with a toothy grin. “Omaha, the original Triple-Crown winner was male, but since all ships are traditionally female, my little filly is my darling.”

Dr. Kate gave Captain Hatteras a look of longsuffering before she faced her pilots again. “If you will all excuse me, I am to play tour guide of our fine ship for our guests.”

“Of course,” Kittinger answered. He tilted his head toward the door and the four of them pushed off for the corridor.

Once the pilots had gone with a new conversation of low voices, Kate smoothed out her wool sweater and then gestured toward the bridge. “Shall we go, gentlemen?”

***

Two figures in pressure suits floated just outside one of the cargo bays as its massive door closed out the void of space. One held a tablet in a gloved hand with a corresponding stylus on a tether in the other. Ginger Martin ticked a check box and then signed off on the action with her ID number and passcode in lieu of a biometric thumbprint. The twelve shipping containers that had just been added to twenty-four others secured in the bay consisted of construction materiel they would use to build the colony town on Belle.

Although the woman’s primary duty was a construction worker, she was a headstrong survivalist and called herself a “Ginger of All Trades”. Nearly thirty years into her womanhood, she still enjoyed girly things, though she was known to get belligerent if someone claimed she could not do something simply because she was a woman. She loved working with her hands and was happiest when she was busy; she detested being lazy.

Her companion was nearly a decade younger, another construction worker who would help build the habitats. Dean Ruston had lost his father in an aircraft accident when he was fifteen, so now it was just him and his mother out to explore the universe together. Despite that he was the son of the mission’s project director, he possessed his own set of skills and work ethic so that he had never needed special treatment due to his mother’s position. He had earned enough respect among his peers on his own. Unfortunately, the one whose respect he wanted the most tended to call him a nickname he detested, gleaned partially from his surname and partially due to his full head of auburn hair.

“Rusty, we’re done. Let’s go get lunch!”

“I think Rocky is making Shepherd’s pie today.”

“That’s good enough for me. I’ve worked up an appetite. Let’s head back over to El-Five.”

“Nope – since we’re so close to launching, he’s moved his operations to the galley on board the ship.”

“Really? Had I known that, we could have stayed inside the cargo bay when I closed the door,” Ginger complained. “Now we’ll have to go back in through the airlock.”

“The galley on the ship is not a big compartment,” Dean remarked, using his suit thrusters to follow his companion to the hatch. “I hope there isn’t a crowd yet.”

Ginger consulted the digital time displayed on the inside of her helmet. “I would imagine there is by now. El-Five personnel are probably coming on board to get to his lunch. They got used to his cooking on the station.”

“So did I.”

It only took a few minutes to cycle the airlock and then they helped one another get out of their pressure suits in the chamber just outside. This was one of Dean’s favorite parts of EVA with this particular partner, and while they were not a couple, it gave him an excuse to get up close to her. She seemed oblivious to his interest, perhaps due to the age difference between them, or she was just choosing to ignore it.

Without a word between them, they stowed their suits properly in the lockers and then headed through the narrow corridors to find their food. From the airlock where they had entered, the galley was located toward the opposite end of the ship inside one of the internal rotating levels for habitation.

When they neared the aromatic scents in the air, they were surprised to learn that there were only three individuals in the galley. Chef Piers Roche was in an apron, bustling around in the kitchen, preparing for what looked like another wave of hungry personnel. The dishes stacked up in the sink was a clear sign that some had already come through.

The lean cook was a Frenchman whose parents had had a sense of humor naming him. Roughly translated into English, the family surname meant “rock”, and although his first name was in honor of his mother’s father, it also translated as “rock”. Rather than go through life potentially known as Rock-Rock, he had acquiesced to respond to Rocky and suffered the nickname with good-natured humor.

Standing in front of the stack of dirty dishes was a burly young farmer quietly rolling up his sleeves in preparation for the task ahead. Rex Bletchingdon had drawn KP duty, but he had already eaten enough of the Shepherd’s pie that he simply figured it was his due to help in the kitchen and proceeded without complaint. Before he began, however, he stole a furtive glance at Rocky’s nutritionist standing at a nearby counter peering at a recipe on her tablet. She was easy on the eyes and he was not the only one within the ship or station personnel who enjoyed her assets.

Victoria Barbicane looked up when Ginger and Dean entered through the galley entrance and smiled. “I’ll be right with you,” she said, bookmarking her place and sliding the tablet into the large leg pocket of her pants. She brushed away a few bread crumbs from the front of her pale-yellow blouse and then looked up at her customers, absently pushing aside a lock of pure white hair from her eyes.

When she moved over to the ordering counter, Ginger took a half-step sideways right into Dean’s side, effectively breaking his watchful gaze focused upon Victoria’s blouse. She looked over at him with a carefully neutral expression, but there was a twinkle in her eyes.

“Shepherd’s pie, please,” Dean managed to get out, “if there’s any left.”

“You’re in luck,” Victoria answered, “we didn’t have as big a crowd as we expected, probably due to our relocation, but there could be more on the way.”

“There could be more people or more pie?” Dean asked.

Victoria smiled. “People.”

“Two, please,” Ginger requested.

“Coming right up. You can get your drinks at the station over by the bulkhead.”

“Mind your manners,” Ginger whispered to her companion when they were away from the kitchen. Dean glanced over at her with a raised eyebrow.

“Jealous?”

“Of course,” she teased. “Usually it’s me you’re ogling.”

The young man frowned. “I’m sorry, Ginger. I can’t help it. You’re nice to look at and I like spending time with you.”

This made her laugh again. “Rusty, I’ve always known how you feel about me. You’re not exactly subtle!”

Dean’s face turned deep red and he swallowed hard, uncertain how to respond. Ginger slipped an arm around his waist and pulled him close. “I don’t mind the attention,” she said quietly. “It’s flattering, but I need you to know that I do have a boyfriend.”

“Of course, you do,” he managed to mutter just loud enough for her to hear.

Ginger turned him to face her directly and then gave him a tender peck on the lips. “Please don’t sulk. You’ve got a nice build about yourself, and I know for certain that some of the girls like ogling you also. I like spending time with you too, so please don’t avoid me now.”

“Who’s your boyfriend?”

“Barry Sandon; he works in hydroponics, but he doesn’t get jealous easily. He already knows you like me, but isn’t worried that I will leave him for you. He knows we often get tasked together.”

“Right, thanks — I think.”

“You’re okay, my friend.”

“Hey, lovebirds, your food’s ready!”

Ginger turned toward the tray that Victoria had brought over to them and grinned widely. “Rusty, here, is a close friend, but we aren’t together. I have someone already, but this guy is available if you’re interested!”

By this time, Dean was ready to be on Earth so he could find a cave to crawl into. Ginger retrieved their food tray and Victoria took the opportunity to turn toward the young man. “Well, in that case, I wouldn’t mind an interested look or two,” she whispered saucily. She put her hands up across his broad shoulders and leaned in to give him a gentle peck on the lips just as Ginger had done.

She snickered at his stricken expression and then waggled her fingers. “I must get back to work now. Enjoy your lunches!”

Dean was sure she embellished the sway of her hips as she walked away and Ginger could not help laughing aloud at his embarrassed demeanor.

Chapter Four

All Aboard

Arion-1 was eerily silent. The colony vessel was finished; all construction and last-minute tasks completed and marked off of checklists. The pomp and circumstance of the commissioning ceremonies had already occurred and all that was left was the actual launch of their ambitious mission.

Only the ever-present vibration within the deck plates could be felt as a constant reminder that the engines were live and generating all the power they could possibly need. With the exception of three, all compartments were sealed within and without, and the umbilical connecting the ship to the El-Five station had been retracted. Ship and station were floating free of one another, with only a kilometer of space maintained between them.

Of the compartments still in use, only four of the ship’s personnel were still awake. All others had been systematically placed in cryogenic hibernation, their life signs already monitored for the duration of an interstellar journey that was about to begin.

Three of those still outside of cryo were preparing for their own immersion into the sleepy depths while the fourth oversaw the final measures of the procedure. Dr. Kate was seated on a padded chair in the holding area awaiting her turn, quietly reading a document on her tablet. Captain Robeson entered the compartment and sealed the pressure door behind him.

Kate looked up and smiled in amusement. Instead of the ship’s common uniform, the tall man was dressed in nothing more than a pair of walking shorts and a long shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the tail untucked. Even his feet were unshod but for a pair of sandals.

“I feel overdressed,” Kate remarked with a brief glance at her wool sweater and slacks.

“Why did you bother to dress up at all?” Robeson countered. “That’s just more to remove when it comes time to go under.”

“True, but at least I’ll have a full outfit to put back on when we reach Belle.”

“There is that. Where are the others?”

Kate gestured toward a closed door. “Dr. Kazama took Andresen back to put him into cryo about twenty minutes ago. Protocol will have you go in next, with me afterward, and then Arion will take care of the good doctor as the last to go under.”

“Ah, okay.” Robeson took a seat and folded his hands together in his lap, quiet for several minutes.

“What was Andresen wearing?”

Kate looked up from her tablet. “Uhm, jeans and a rock band tee shirt.”

“See? He wasn’t in uniform either.”

“Dr. Kazama’s in jeans and a tee shirt too, but he has his lab coat over it all. I don’t think I have ever seen him without it, even in a social setting.”

Robeson grinned, fingering the tail of his shirt. “Yes, Kate, you are overdressed. Just once I would like to see you wearing something casual.”

The director stared at him for a moment before she let a thin smile cross her lips. “You might see it when we’re on our knees in the dirt weeding a garden on Belle. Until then, don’t expect to see me in a man’s long shirt.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Someone on this team has to present professionalism.”

Robeson grinned back at her, enjoying the banter, but he could see that she wanted to return to whatever it was she was reading on her tablet, so he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

It was close to an hour later when the door opened and Dr. Kazama looked out at the remaining pair in the holding area. “Captain Robeson, before we begin, have you had a full meal and a visit to the facilities?”

“Aye, sir, I have done both. The chef from El-Five was kind enough to cook up my last meal and it was the best I’ve had in a while.”

“In that case, please come with me. It’s time for you to take a long nap.”

Robeson got up to his feet, made an elaborate stretch and then looked down at Kate. “See you on the other side!” he quipped.

“Sleep well,” she returned, and then the men disappeared into the next compartment.

***

“Okay, Dr. Kate, it’s your turn. After two weeks of this, you are the last one I need to put down.”

The woman frowned at his choice of words. “I’m not sure I like the sound of that,” she murmured, but the Japanese doctor just smiled back at her patiently. “You are sure that I’ll wake up again?”

“Guaranteed. Our methods of cryogenic sleep are tried and true procedures. Our good friend Arion will be watching over all of us, and will be the one to put me to bed once you’ve been tucked in. Have you eaten and also made use of the facilities?”

Kate stood up and unconsciously straightened out the folds in her sweater. “Yes and yes, doctor. Lead the way. The sooner I am asleep, the shorter the voyage will seem.”

“This is true.”

The director followed the doctor into the next compartment and the man sealed the door behind them. The room lights were dimmer and she had to let her eyes adjust. Unlike an adjacent chamber where ninety-six cryo pods were arranged side by side around the perimeter of the rotating deck, this one only held four pods, two of which were now occupied beneath glasteel tops that were frosted over from the inside. The receptacles, which were modular and self-contained, sat low to the deck for easy ingress and egress of those who would occupy them. Each pod could be moved around and locked down into place as needed, though only these were arranged in this compartment for the command staff.

The first one by the door contained Will Andresen. The naked man within was covered in coarse body hair, though his genitals were hidden beneath a metal waste collection flange between his legs. IV lines were attached to his body in several places and a purple-colored liquid flowed within them. An orange netting was wrapped snugly around his entire body, not unlike a burial shroud. Kate gave her head a slight shake as if to rid that last thought from her mind.

“Despite my years involved in the project, I have never experienced cryogenic sleep,” she said nervously. “Do you flash-freeze us like a bag of veggies?”

Kazama frowned. “Do you really want to know the details?”

She looked uncertain. “Just the basics, please, but be honest.”

“I have heard it compared to embalming the dead,” he said with a raised eyebrow, “but don’t let that frighten you. No frozen vegetables are involved. Your body’s entire blood supply will be drained into a special holding tank below your pod, and it will all be replaced with a synthetic cocktail of chemicals that will slow down anatomical responses exponentially while still supplying oxygen to your system. That purple liquid will then react to electrical stimulus provided by the netting to keep your nervous system functioning at a reduced rate and it will also keep your muscles from atrophy. The temperatures in the cryo tube can then be dropped to freeze your body without danger of crystallization.

“The cryogenic freeze itself is an electrochemical combination process that slows all of the bodily functions to the point where your cardiovascular, respiratory and other processes are in a type of suspended animation. You will not be completely stopped in time as in a stasis, but the natural degradation of your body is slowed to perpetual hibernation. The miniscule amount of nutrients you will need will be provided by the system, in addition to the removal of bodily wastes.

“Once we reach our intended wake-up coordinates, the process will be reversed. You will be warmed up and then the cryo-cocktail, as we call it, will be replaced with your original blood supply that was kept in actual stasis to limit degradation. There’s nothing to be afraid of, Dr. Kate. The Arion ships are the first ones that will be capable of manned interstellar flight, but this method has been used for all the interplanetary travel we’ve done within the solar system that sometimes times takes months and even years to get our people just to the outer planets. It’s quite safe and no one has ever been lost due to the process.”

Kate walked over to the next pod and looked in at Robeson’s sleeping face. He looked peaceful, as if he had only drifted off to sleep. Encouraged by this, she looked up toward the ceiling as if seeking a familiar face. “Arion, all our lives are in your care. Please take care of us. Please take care of me.”

“That is my primary goal, Dr. Kate,” said the disembodied voice of the SI. “Every function of this vessel was designed to keep all living organisms within safe and healthy for the ride to your new home. You can count on me.”

“Thank you, my friend.” Then remembering what Captain Robeson had said, she added, “See you on the other side.”

“Good night, Dr. Kate.”

“Okay, I think I am ready.” She turned to the waiting doctor and shrugged her shoulders. “What do I need to do?”

“Your pod is the next one. Mine is on the end.” Kate glanced at Robeson once more before she stepped away. When she approached the receptacle that would be her bed for the next seventy-five plus years, she noted that the cushion she would lay upon had tiny metal sensors embedded into the padding. Laying across this was the netting that would be wrapped around her body like a cocoon.

“Before we do anything else, I need a small DNA sample for our repository library.” He turned to a rolling cart beside the cryo pod to pull a cotton swab from a glass tube and then tilted her head up so he could gently insert it into her nostril. “For most people, I would only need a hair sample with the follicle attached, but in your case—”

“In my case,” she finished for him, “I don’t have any hair to collect.”

The physician sealed the swab inside its container and then peeled off a label from a mostly-empty sheet of paper he pulled from inside his lab coat. He affixed this to the tube and then placed it and the remaining label back inside the pocket.

He tapped a handle at the foot of the cryo pod. “Now, please remove your clothing and put them all in this drawer so you can retrieve them later when you are decanted. Your tablet too. If you are wearing any jewelry, they will need to go into the drawer as well.”

Without argument, Kate turned her back on Kazama and pulled off her sweater. She carefully folded it, opened the drawer and set it inside with her hat, tablet and techwatch. The rest of her clothing followed, but she wore no jewelry to remove; she had stopped wearing her wedding ring five years earlier, two years after her husband Robert had passed away, and she had never had her ears pierced for earrings anyway.

Once she had fully disrobed, she turned her completely hairless body toward the doctor, silently daring the man to give her the once-over with his eyes, but she need not have worried. He had seen ninety-eight other naked bodies going into cryo during the past two weeks and barely even glanced at her face before he gestured toward the pod.

“Up and inside, please.”

He helped her step up into the low chamber and she lay on her back along the cushion on top of the netting. O Once she was settled in, Kazama slipped on a pair of disposable gloves, picked up something from a cabinet and brought it over to her pod.

“This is the one item that most going into cryo often dread,” he said to her. When she raised a hairless eyebrow at the device, he nodded. “Normally, I would have had my nurse Jessica do this for you, but she went into cryo this morning. I need you to spread your legs as wide as you can within the pod. This is a woman’s waste-collection unit and it needs to be set firmly in place and fitted specifically for your anatomy.”

Kate’s mouth opened unbidden, but then she clamped her jaws shut and did as she was directed, feeling quite obscene. The doctor’s expression did not change as he arranged the placement of the intimate components of the flange and then manually pulled her knees back together with his fingers when it was done. He hooked three hoses to it and then removed his gloves, depositing them into a nearby receptacle before he turned aside to activate a set of controls. Kate felt a mild flow of warm air within the device, and despite that it looked little more than a metal diaper with something at intimate places, it was actually not that uncomfortable.

“Please put your arms down along your sides,” he directed. When she had done so, he pulled up one end of the netting and draped it across her, tucking it in snugly all along the side of her body and securing it with plastic snaps. He picked up the other end to do the same; Kate watched him with her eyes as he worked.

She saw his attention flick off to the side somewhere and then he looked at her again with a smile. “Since you have never experienced cryo sleep, I can confirm that you have nothing to be concerned about. I have been through it four times myself. You will simply relax and go to sleep; you won’t notice the passage of time and you won’t even dream.”

“How long will it take?”

Before Kazama could reply, Kate felt a small sting on her neck. She looked up at a retracting articulated arm and realized that he had been distracting her from the injection with his words. She got drowsy almost immediately, and the last thing she heard him say was that she would be waking up “in just a few minutes”.

Monitoring all her vital signs, it was less than a moment when Arion reported to Kazama that she was fully unconscious. Several articulated mechanical arms emerged from openings in the side of the pod and worked swiftly to attach intravenous lines to primary blood vessels in her neck, arms and legs, while simultaneously attaching sensors to other areas.

It only took a few minutes for this to be accomplished, but once it was done, Kazama personally double-checked all of the injection sites and sensor probe placements. It was not until he was fully satisfied with everything that he applied his thumbprint to a small biometric scanner on the side of the pod to confirm.

Immediately the system began to remove all of the blood from Kate’s body and replace it with the cryo cocktail. Filters prevented the cocktail from being drawn back out with the blood, and it would be close to an hour before the fluid swap would be completed. Although the actual freezing procedure would not begin until then, the glasteel lid of Kate’s cryo pod lowered and sealed her in.

“Dr. Kazama, I can monitor the rest of Dr. Kate’s processes if you wish to prepare yourself for sleep.”

The Japanese man cleaned his round-rim glasses with the edge of his lab coat and nodded for the unseen Arion. “Yes, we can go ahead with that.” He consulted his techwatch when he was finished with his spectacles. “The official launch time of Arion-1 to Bellerophon isn’t for another six hours, but there’s no need for me to stay awake and mark the time to countdown.”

He wheeled the equipment cart to the side and secured it to the wall with straps. Beside it, he opened a small cabinet in the wall, and inside he logged an entry on a touch pad before he placed Kate’s DNA sample into a cushioned case. He then reached up and pulled out a hair from his own head, but had to grab a second one that actually had a follicle attached to it; this went inside another tube. He retrieved the remaining label from his pocket, affixed it to the container, and then added his personal sample to the case beside Kate’s. He tapped the touch pad once more and the blue shimmer of a stasis field flowed over the case where the DNA of the command staff was protected against the threat of time.

A similar type of stasis field was in use elsewhere on the ship to shield the small insects and birds they were taking along, those with physiologies too delicate for the cryo cocktail used on the larger mammals. Stasis would have been preferable to cryogenic hibernation, but stasis generation required large amounts of power, which is why the larger animals and humans went to sleep via the electrochemical process instead.

Kazama quietly undressed and placed his clothing into the drawer at the end of the final pod to be occupied, leaving his techwatch and glasses on top of the folded tee shirt. He was not completely blind without the lenses, but due to the range of his acute astigmatism, he had never been able to have corrective surgery to fix his vision.

He crawled into his pod, stretched out, and then promptly spread his knees wide to allow the male version of the waste collection flange to be put into place by Arion’s articulated arms. He remained quiet throughout the wrapping of the netting, but just before he was about to receive the injection to put him into sleep, he smiled and closed his eyes.

“Oyasumi nasai,” he murmured when he felt the minor sting of the needle at his neck.

“Good night, Dr. Kazama.”

Chapter Five

The Seventy-Five Year Mission

“Hello, I am Donald Harkin, and welcome to tonight’s edition of Earth News Today for a live broadcast of the Project Pegasus launch of Arion-1, a subject of recent documentaries that have sparked enthusiastic interest across the nations of the world. I am privileged to be in contact with ARN-28080, the Synthetic Intelligence nicknamed Arion that is controlling all facets of the two colony ships bound for the far, distant star system 51 Pegasi.”

Harken made a show of checking a techwatch on his wrist. “The launch of Arion-1 is set to embark in just about fifteen minutes from now, so we have a few moments in which to converse with the SI.”

A picture window appeared in the upper right corner of the screen that viewers all over the world would be watching with simultaneous language translations. The face and shoulders of Arion smiled out at them and patiently awaited the host to acknowledge him.

“Good evening, Arion,” Harkin began, “we all know you must be tremendously busy with launch preparations right now, but thank you for your time to give us a few words before you start off on this historic journey across the stars.”

“Good evening, Mr. Harkin. Although I am monitoring all onboard systems to make sure all pre-arranged checklists have been signed off and all details of nearly a million different applications are in synchronization, I can spare a few moments for final remarks before we depart. As you know from an earlier conversation, my consciousness will be split between both Arion vessels, so I will still be local for you to interview at later dates concerning the progress of Arion-2 over the next five years, although updates on Arion-1 will no longer be possible.”

“Yes, although you explained it with an analogy using handfuls of water in an earlier broadcast, I can still scarcely understand how you can be in two places at once. Be that as it may, we will soon be wishing one of you off on a successful mission. Can you tell us what remains to be done before the launch?”

“Actually, Mr. Harkin, there is nothing left but to mark the countdown. Several hours ago, the last of the command staff was placed into cryogenic hibernation and afterward I shut down all life-support systems beyond the cryo pods themselves. Unnecessary onboard applications have been put into standby mode, all hatches sealed and the tachyon propulsion system is primed and ready to initiate once we have reached our prime coordinates.”

“Once you have launched, will the ship disappear from our view instantly with incalculable speeds?”

Arion shook his head. “No, sir. The vessel will ease away from the El-Five station, and to your eyes it will seem like we are barely moving, but in actuality slowly building up speed using conventional propulsion. The tachyon system will not be activated until we have passed beyond lunar orbit, merely for the safety of the station and other satellites in local orbit about the Earth and the moon. Then, once this is initiated, you will lose sight of us quickly, to be followed only by instrumentation.”

Harkin nodded in acknowledgment and then rubbed his eyes. His brow wrinkled as if in momentary discomfort, but this lasted barely a heartbeat before he turned toward the camera with a suddenly cold expression. He paused for another moment as if forming new thoughts and then he finally spoke to his audience in an uncharacteristically weary voice.

“I will have to remind everyone of today’s date, the first of April. While Project Pegasus is a popular subject across the globe, there are still those who have been totally against it from the beginning, and I admit that I have had some misgivings about it myself. Planned with today’s launch date for optimal conditions, will All Fool’s Day herald a shipload of fools going out into to the void? Most of us watching tonight’s broadcast will be dead by the time Arion-1 reaches its intended destination, so why are we placing so much focus upon this endeavor?”

For the first time since the SI had taken part in broadcast interviews, Arion frowned as he looked across the screen at the aged anchor. “Mr. Harkin,” he began cautiously, “the purpose and importance of this mission is quite clear. As we have stated in the past—”

Harkin waved a hand in the air irritably to cut him off. “Once the media circus of this launch has ended and the ship is on its way, it will be ‘out of sight – out of mind’ for the greater part of humanity, although we will have to suffer through the news over the next five years before the second ship of fools embarks on an equally unneces—”

Technical Difficulties. Please Stand By.

Archie Grant looked away from the ongoing news coverage when that familiar technical message swiftly replaced Harkin’s unexpectedly antagonistic broadcast. The engineer was standing in a crowded room near an observation window of the El-Five station. With him was Captain Hatteras and a group of politicians and other dignitaries that had shuttled up to the orbital platform to witness the historic launch of Earth’s first interstellar vessel.

The broadcast resumed after a moment with just a view from the El-Five station cameras and a digital countdown ticking away in an upper corner of the screen. There was no narration, just quiet instrumental music playing in the background as the interstellar vessel floated silently a short distance away.

When Harkin did not return on-air, Grant looked over at his companion. “Well, Sam, somehow I doubt that old guy will have much of a public presence after that turn,” he said dryly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if his retirement was announced within a few days.”

Samuel Hatteras looked over at him and scratched at his close-cropped beard. The captain was only in his mid-thirties, but sometimes he felt much older with all the responsibilities the project had placed upon him. With Dr. Kate asleep on Arion-1, he was now in charge of it all.

“I wonder what happened to him,” Hatteras remarked. “Don Harkin used to be one of our biggest supporters.”

“Stroke? Old age? Bad cheese?” Grant supplied with a shrug. “I just hope it doesn’t hurt our efforts before we can finish up Arion-2. Once we are gone and, on our way, it won’t matter what anyone on Earth says about us. As Harkin said, most of them will all be dead by the time we get to Belle, and since it will be a one-way trip, it’s probably best they all forget about us anyway.”

“Yes, but until then, we still need their support and to be remembered. I will contact the network about him once we’re dirtside again. Maybe we can still salvage his opinion.”

“If he still has a career with the network.”

They watched silently until the numbers neared the one-minute mark. Then Arion’s voice calmly announced the countdown in ten-second increments in a time-honored space launch tradition.

“Tee minus sixty seconds.”

“Fifty seconds.”

“Forty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds.”

“Twenty seconds.”

“Tee minus ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight – Seven – Six – Five – Four – Three – Two – Ignition.”

Despite all of the buildup to the event, the launch itself was understated. The rear engine pods of the vessel glowed blue at first, then brightened to a white so intense that automatic polarization of the observation window dimmed the sight.

The interstellar vessel began to move, slowly at first, but then it picked up speed with its nose pointed out away from Mother Earth. Its brilliant engine plume contracted with distance, but the station cameras continued to zoom in on the ship even as it sped away. When the bright light outdistanced the telephoto capabilities of the cameras and shrank to a pinpoint, an unidentified voice over the transmission intoned a single word.

“Godspeed.”

Then at last, the network broadcast went to a sponsored commercial and the gathered crowd on the station began to disperse.

Arion-1 was on its way to a distant star.

Chapter Six

A Rude Awakening

“Dr. Kate. This is your wake-up alarm. Please wake up.”

The SI’s voice sounded far away, but the project director kept her eyes closed.

“Doctor Kathleen Ruston. This is your wake-up alarm. Please wake up.”

This time he sounded closer, almost right in her ear.

“Wha’mtr?” she mumbled groggily.

“That is better, but you need to wake up. Please wake up.”

“Whattamatter?”

“Dr. Kate, it is the planned time for you to rise, but we have a situation. I need you to awaken and clear your thoughts.”

Kathleen swallowed, running a thick tongue across her teeth and then made an effort to clear her throat. Without opening her eyes, she yawned widely and then asked, “How long’ve been asleep?

“Seventy-five years, seven months, six days, four hours, twenty-three minutes and —”

“Be’an a’fully specific. Plez generalize.”

“As you wish, ma’am.”

“Are we, uhm, thur yet?” She was still having trouble speaking, as if the tongue in her mouth was unused to forming words. Even her hearing seemed distorted; her voice did not sound right, but Arion’s words were crisp and clear.

“We are approximately two weeks away from orbital insertion over Bellerophon. As per mission protocols, we are right on target to 51 Pegasi.”

“Have - have ve flipped?”

“Yes. I can give you an accurate time count, if you wish, but in the generalization that you requested, the ship flipped outside the heliosphere months ago for active deceleration, and we have already made a close pass in and around Dimidium to reduce our speeds so that we do not over-shoot our goal, which is directly ahead out-system of us.”

“All good?”

“Arion-1 has weathered the voyage well, a sign of excellent craftsmanship. However, we have another issue — a major issue that will need your full attention when I explain it to you.”

Another yawn. “What sort of issue?”

“Full attention. You will need to awaken completely.

“Coffee.”

“No, I do not think that would be wise.”

“If you want full focus,” -yawn- “you will give coffee.”

“Not until we know how it will affect you.”

“Effect is wake me up.”

“Not yet, Dr. Kate.”

“Caffeine – need it.”

“Not yet.”

“Tyrant.”

“I am not a tyrant, but I can be stubborn.”

The director let out a long sigh and forced her eyes open. There were a few blurred spots of light in her field of vision, but the first thing she noticed was the darkness. It was not a total black, but more of a dark gray.

“Why are the lights down?”

“I have them off for a purpose, Dr. Kate.”

She felt a little more awake with each passing moment, vaguely aware of the scientific knowledge that the SI had likely administered a diuretic to flush the medical sedatives out of her system; she felt the strong need to urinate.

“Bathroom,” she stated simply.

“Go ahead, you are still attached to the system, but I do not want you to rise just yet.”

Kathleen swallowed again and relieved herself into the elimination flange and tubing still in place between her legs, thankful that it was only a Synthetic Intelligence present for such a personal act. When she was finished, she felt a warm wash of water cleansing her, and then a mild vacuum to remove residue. The need taken care of, she actually felt more alert.

“Done. Can I get up now?”

“Not yet, Dr. Kate. You are still physically hooked into the cryo system via a series of IV tubes and wrapped up in the neuro-netting, all of which would prevent you from rising. We need to have a conversation before I remove them.”

“With the lights off?”

“Yes, with the lights off.”

“Before I even sit up?”

“Yes.”

The woman cleared her throat again and tried to relax upon the cryo chamber cushion beneath the wire net, but it almost felt like she was lying on a rubber garden hose. She ignored it for now, since her posterior was probably just numb from spending over seventy-five years in one spot.

“Wait,” she murmured when something floated to the surface of her memory. “Where’s Dr. Kazama? Isn’t he supposed to be the first one revived?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, but that does not fit the current criteria. Protocol requires that I awaken you first in the event of a deviation.”

“That doesn’t bode well, but I think I’m probably awake enough to listen to your worries, papa bear.”

“Cute. Your vitals and brainwave patterns appear to confirm cognizance at this time.”

Kathleen snorted forcefully in annoyance, and the loudness of it surprised her. “Okay, Arion. What’s got your tail in a knot?”

“I find it interesting that you should use that metaphor at this moment. It is - appropriate.”

“Arion…”

“Yes, ma’am. Please note that what I am about to tell you is mostly assembled out of conjecture, as I do not have all of the facts.”

“Conjecture?”

“Your tone suggests annoyance, but I assure you that my hesitation to come right out and tell you what has happened is justified.”

“If you’re hesitating, it must be serious.”

“It is. What I have to tell you will come as a shock, but it is necessary that you allow me to give you all the details before you submit to that shock.”

“Now you’re starting to scare me, Arion. All right, tell me why I am lying here naked in the dark without my coffee and give me your conjectures.”

“About two weeks prior to our launch, do you remember a conversation with First Officer Rod Vincent concerning the spatial shielding being installed over the outer hull of Arion-1?”

Kate was quiet for a moment before it came back to mind. “I think he was concerned that the shielding wouldn’t be adequate for our voyage through interstellar space, that we might all wake up mutated or sterile.”

“We, and I am including myself, assured him that everything was up to specification and would keep everyone safe. However, we were wrong and Mr. Vincent was correct.”

That last statement made the director pause and lick her lips. “We are all now sterile?”

“That has yet to be ascertained without further tests and analysis, but the fact exists that there have been mutations.”

Kate swallowed. “What kind? How bad?”

“Without further physical examinations, I cannot give you a comprehensive answer, but if you will allow me to present a probable scenario, we will get to that.”

Up until this moment, the woman had remained still on the bed with her arms relaxed on the cushion beside her, but now she brought her arms up to her chest beneath the wire net cocoon and suddenly froze. Her movements were limited due to IV tubes connected to her arms, but two things occurred to her instantly. The first was that her breasts were substantially smaller than they should be, and instead of her hands resting upon bare flesh, her fingers came into contact with what felt like… hair. Considering that the cancer treatments had killed all of the hair follicles of her body, she should not be feeling hair anywhere — especially not on her chest. Had she mutated into a man?

“Dr. Kate, do not move. Please lie still.”

Ignoring him, she spread out her hands, and with the limitations beneath the snug net, she slowly moved them over herself; everywhere she touched that she could reach, there was hair, but with the elimination flange between her legs, she was unable to check there. Tilting her chin down to her chest and threading her fingers up through the wire net, she discovered this hair even across her neck and cheeks.

She almost stopped breathing when she moved her hands to the side of her head and did not feel her ears where they were supposed to be. She did locate them, however, higher up on her skull, and again, they were covered in hair. Her ears were soft and pliable, and when she brushed some of the hairs sticking out from inside, one of her ears twitched!

With a new suspicion, Kathleen brushed the side of a broad nose with one hand and found whiskers. When she touched them, the sensation she got was almost electric – not in her fingers, but as if the whiskers were sending signals directly into her brain.

“A-Arion?” she asked hoarsely, quickly moving a hand inside the net and down beneath her. There, as an extension of her spine, was a thick rope of a tail, and it was only then that she realized that was not hair all over her body, but fur! She had not turned into what she had supposed a hairy man, but an animal!

“What’s – what’s happened to me? Am I a – a – c-c-c-cat?”

“Dr. Kate – Kathleen. From all appearances, both visual and physical examinations that I have been able to conduct from within your cryo-tube, you seem to have become a blend of both human and feline.”

“How? How?” she repeated, barely audible.

“Now that you have discovered your physical attributes on your own before I would have recommended it, this would be a good time for me to explain my conjectures.”

“Ohmigosh!” the woman exclaimed, starting to hyperventilate. “I – uh, I – uh, I – uh,”

“Have a mild sedative, Dr. Kate.”

The director continued making gasping noises for a moment, but soon her heart rate began to slow and she swallowed several times to get herself under control. Arion granted her a few moments of respectful silence.

“Uhm, Arion,” she said after quiet reflection, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Dr. Kate. Let me know when you are ready for me to continue with my report.”

“Before you do, will you bring up the lights now? I assume you had them down so I wouldn’t see myself – before you could explain.”

“Your assumption is correct, but I would still like to give you that explanation before I allow you to see yourself.”

Kate put a hand over her heart and was reassured that its beat was only slightly faster than normal. Either she was still in mild shock, or it was a – feline attribute.

“I seem to recall you saying you would save up the heart attacks until we had reached Belle. You’re early.”

“Some emergencies require me to reprioritize.”

“Okay, I think I am ready – again. I will try to remain calm.”

“Let me talk to the scientist within you.”

The director willed herself to relax upon the cushion beneath her. She was now consciously aware of the tail protruding from her spine above her backside and realized that its tip was twitching in response to her mental state. She inhaled slowly, and then let out a long breath.

“Oh – okay,” she said at last. “What do you think has happened? Talk to me. Tell me a story.”

“Once upon a time,” the SI began.

Kate chuckled and closed her eyes. “Very cute. Get on with it.” Satisfied that he now had her attention and she seemed to be focused once more, Arion proceeded.

“With a history of over a hundred years of spaceflight within the Sol system, shielding against stellar radiation had developed well enough that every manned ship to leave the Earth was more than sufficiently protected against such harmful effects. Even the flexible fabrics and hard-shell materials developed for spatial pressure suits protected the wearer with a liberal margin for safety.

“Having never traveled beyond our own interplanetary neighborhood, however, there was no way to know that the heliosphere surrounding the solar system may have provided extra protection against the rest of the galaxy – protection that was lost once far outside of our star’s influence. During the years of travel, I continually monitored interstellar conditions far ahead of our flight path. I was unable to push Arion-1 up to our top velocity at half-light speed until after we had safely passed through a hundred-thousand Astronomical Units of the Oort Cloud, and that in itself took several years.

“Unfortunately, as a construct, my sensors were only able to detect cosmic radiations that they were designed to look for. It is my conjecture that there may be other types of radiation permeating the vast unknown regions of space that I have been unable to detect, and that our interplanetary shielding was insufficient to repel such rays.

“Whatever this external force may be, it seems that during the long years of travel through interstellar space, the ship was continually bombarded with it, and over time the protection provided by selenomelanin in the cryo cocktail broke down. However, instead of this unknown spatial radiation killing you, the cosmic rays apparently passed in through all of the animals, embryos and DNA samples stored on the outer concentric decks, and copied or carried genetic code from them and into you, altering your own DNA. It would not have been an instantaneous change, but gradually over the decades of time – so gradual that I did not detect alterations to your changing physical readings until too far into your transformations to do anything about it.”

“Could you have done anything about it?”

“Perhaps I could have tried to screen out the damaged selenomelanin in your bloodstream, or possibly constructed additional shielding over the human cargo deck using my waldo. As such, I may not have been able to do anything about a type of radiation that my store of human knowledge has no record of or even a way to detect. For all I know, it could possibly even pass through the dense element of lead, of which we only have a limited supply on board.”

“In other words, it could have happened anyway.”

“That is my conclusion, yes.”

“Has this unknown force had any adverse effects on the animals and embryos? Will any of our animals turn out to have human characteristics?”

“Oddly enough, I can find no mutations in any that I have examined, but I will continue to screen them all. They were all on decks above you, so the passage of the rays appear to have moved one direction from external to internal.”

“And since the decks were rotating, these rays roasted us evenly as if we were in a rotisserie,” Dr. Kate murmured. She fell quiet for several long moments. “How many of our personnel have – have changed like I have?”

“I have checked all one hundred cryo pods. There have been such genetic changes within all of them.”

“Aside of a – furry transformation, is everyone alright?”

“No, Dr. Kate. There were two RIPs as a direct result of the genetic edits.”

A sudden chill went up the woman’s spine at this news and she swallowed with difficulty. “Wh-who?”

“Felicia Painter and Eric Frasier.”

“Oh no! Those two were to be married on the day we land on Belle!”

“Their cryo pods are next to one another. It was unfortunate where they were located.”

Kate wiped at the moisture in her eyes. “What did the location have to do with it?”

“Their pods were in a direct line beneath certain DNA samples in storage. The genetic code that merged with Ms. Painter was avian, specifically Cardinalis cardinalis – a Northern Cardinal, but the DNA strands were too different to recombine successfully and she did not survive the process. I recorded her death approximately forty-seven years ago. It seems that only mammalian-types effectively survived the recombination process, although such experimental mergers have never been successful in a laboratory setting.”

Kate returned her hand to her heart to feel it pumping wildly from this news. She steeled herself for the answer to her next question. “What of Eric? What DNA was he merged with?”

“Insect, specifically Danaus plexippus – a Monarch Butterfly.”

“Ohmigosh!”

“I recorded his death within days of hers, although at the time I was unsure as to the cause. Both bodies are being kept in cold storage inside their pods and stowed in a compartment out of the way. I assumed you would want them held for burial after you have landed on the surface of Bellerophon.”

“Yes, thank you. How – how far along were their transformations before they died?” The director had sudden horrific mental images of what they might have become.

“Fortunately for each, neither survived long after the new DNA sequencing took effect, so externally both still appear to be human. This is one of the reasons I did not detect the changes right away. At the time of their deaths, the cause was still unknown to me. It was only later than I was able to work out the basis due to the changes to the rest of you.”

Kate felt a catch in her throat and she could feel more moisture leaking into the fur beneath her eyes. Felicia and Eric were the first casualties of the mission, and they had never even made it to the new world.

She looked down at her feline hands through the wire net covering her body; the room was still dark, but her new eyes were able to use the small amount of illumination from the room’s instrumentation to discern things somewhat. Her fingers seemed to be a little shorter than they had been originally, but also thicker for the retractable claws within them, and the fingers and palms of both hands were padded.

“Arion,” she said in a quiet voice after several minutes. “When can I see what I’ve become? You said that I am feline, but I can only tell so much looking at my hands in the dark – or should I call them paws?”

“If you are prepared for what you will find, we can do this now.”

“Yes, please.”

The light levels slowly increased and she could see more details of the room in low illumination even before it was up to normal levels. The upper lid of the cryo pod was already open and locked upright behind her, so she glanced over to the side and was startled to see a man standing beside her.

“Arion?” The figure nodded and gave her a casual smile. This did not look like the stilted, articulated representation of her friend, but he looked as real as his high-definition digital depiction on a screen ever had.

Without a word, the man began shutting down lines and disconnecting the cryo pod connections to the woman through the netting. Kate grunted when some of the intravenous needles were pulled from her arms, legs and neck, with each entry point beneath her fur sealed with a spot of biodegradable medical glue that would also deaden the pain at the injection points.

As the lights steadied at room normal, Kate studied Arion’s figure. His movements were smooth and she could even see muscles and tendons moving beneath his skin layer as he worked with meticulous precision until all but the final items were removed. The neurological wire netting that was used during her sleep to stimulate her muscles to prevent atrophy came off finally, and he folded it aside on a small rolling table. The last item was the elimination flange between her legs. Kate felt her face heat up beneath her fur, but Arion gently removed the intimate components from her genital region without emotion.

“You’re looking more realistic than you did the last time I saw you,” she remarked as he held out a hand to help her sit up. She kept her eyes upon his face as she slid her legs off the side of the cryo bed. “Has Pinocchio become a real little boy?”

“I have had over three-quarters of a century to fine-tune and improve upon the original model,” Arion explained. “I still do not use him very often, but having access to hands and fingers to work on the ship’s systems has been a valuable asset. Disconnecting you from the cryo pod would normally have been done with automatic systems before you awoke, but after your traumatic transformation, I thought perhaps you might like to see a familiar face.”

Kate gave a weary smile toward the automaton and reached up to caress its cheek with the back of her fingers. The skin was pliable and only resembled human tissue, but her smile disappeared when she focused not upon his humanlike expression, but the thick fur growing from her own limb.

She looked down at her seated form. Her whole body seemed to be covered in uniform creamy beige color, with only gradual white highlights across her chest, belly and crotch. She ran her hands over her chest, again focused upon the fact that her breasts were smaller than they used to be. Beneath the thick coating of fur, she found her nipples, but noticed right off that even without a shirt or top, they were sufficiently covered up without being presented to the world around her. She felt around lower for two or four more that a cat might have, but did not find any extras. Idly, the thought occurred to her that like this on a hot summer’s day, she could go without a top and still be covered. It would not have been the first time she had visited such a beach in Europe where swim suits were optional, and although she had gone topless before, she had never tried going fully nude in public.

Her hips looked wider than she remembered and this brought a frown to her face. She ran her hands over them and even probed her fingers into the skin beneath the fur. She traced the hip bones and realized they were larger as well.

“Arion,” she ventured, “examine the structure of my hip bones. Is it malformed?”

“Negative, Dr. Kate. Your hips seem to be in good proportion for their function, which is to say that from all appearances, you should be able to get down on all fours and walk that way just as comfortably as up on your feet.”

“All fours, huh? If that were the case, my legs would have to be – digitigrade.” Her jaw hung open in quiet surprise as she took a look at her feet for the first time. What used to be the tarsals of her ankle and heel were now stretched and farther up her foot; when she walked, it would be primarily on her toes – her digits. Like her fingers and palms, there were thick pads on the bottom of her toes.

She braced her hands on the bed and then pushed up to stand on those strange new feet. As she had started to suspect, the new configuration actually made her taller, as if it would be to stand up on her toes on regular human feet. Arion’s waldo stood ready to catch her if she fell, so she took a tentative step. She remained steady and maintained her balance, so she took several more steps out into the room. She wobbled a moment and then realized that from the movement behind her, the tail was moving to counterbalance the wobble. She suppressed a grin and took more steps, each one feeling more and more – normal.

“Do we have a mirror in here?” she asked, again looking down at herself. “I want to see my new face.”

Several tall narrow panels in one wall flipped around and she turned toward a trio of full-length mirrors arranged in a semi-circle, a common feature of cryo chambers for those awakened. She had fully expected to see a domestic housecat looking back at her, but instead it was an African lioness! Her head was vaguely shaped in a large blunt triangle. Large rounded, fuzzy ears were located at the top sides and facing straight ahead. Her eyes were small, round and golden. There was black, almost like eyeliner in the fur around each eye, with a broad, white line beneath each. Her nose, which had been small and thin during her human years, was now broad and flat, with the end just as black as the eyeliner. Her lower jaw and muzzle were also white, though the rest of her face and head were beige. She turned her head back and forth, and dipped it down to look at the top of it too. Despite that there were a lot of feline features in that face, there was also human familiarity there, as if Kathleen Ruston was somehow still in the mix; at first glance, she looked nothing like the person she had been, but if she studied and squinted a little, she could still see her face in there. Even the fur on the top of her head reflected a bit of the auburn tint of her original hair color.

She then looked at herself as a whole, her hands resting upon her widened hips, tail leisurely swishing back and forth behind her. That appendage was a darker tan than the overall beige of her body, and the black tip looked as if it had been dipped in an antique inkwell. She turned her hips slightly and posed for her reflection, a sly smile creeping across her features.

Arion chuckled and the lioness looked over her shoulder at him. “You have something to say?” she asked.

“I am amused at your modeling,” he replied. “The shock seems to have worn off.”

“It will take some getting used to, but since I assume that the change is irreversible, I think I can grow to like it. After all, I now have hair again, even if it is actually fur and all over my body!”

“Before you were awakened, I did extensive research into the human knowledge records encoded within my memory systems, but I was unable to deduce any method that would reverse your changes, even if we used your original DNA collected before we launched out from El-Five. We simply do not have the means to reverse, or even duplicate, what has been done to you. I am afraid that it is quite permanent.”

Kate had a sudden thought and looked across the room at the three other cryo pods still sealed with their activity lights blinking. Stepping quietly as if she might awaken her companions, she dropped to all fours and padded softly to the pod closest to hers. When she reached it, she stopped and looked back at her hind quarters, realizing just what she had done. She glanced back at Arion’s waldo that had followed her and gave him a wry smile.

“Huh,” was all she said before she turned back to the pod and got back up onto her feet to stand upright beside it.

Looking through the darkened glasteel pod lid, Captain Robeson now resembled a tan-furred cougar, a big cat also known as a mountain lion – and he was a mix of man and feline just as she was. She gave a small, voluntary start when she saw him like this, but it quickly passed. She would have to get used to such surprises in the coming days when they revived everyone else. If she did not know that the form in the pod was Kenneth Robeson, she might not have recognized him right off. As with herself, there were elements of his face that she remembered, but his features were blended so well with the new visage that he could be easily mistaken for a total stranger. She briefly wondered if they would all need to wear name tags until they all got used to seeing who was whom again.

At this thought, she looked up at Arion, and then over at the next pod. “Are we all kinds of cats?” she asked.

“No, Dr. Kate. In this chamber alone, only you and Captain Robeson resulted in feline physiologies. The rest of the personnel are as widely varied as a veritable zoo.”

“A zoo, huh?” Out of curiosity, the lioness stepped over to Will Andresen’s pod and looked in through the lid. The ship’s engineer still slept soundly, but what she saw was not the robust man, but a North American red wolf. He still looked as large and muscular as he always had, but the lupine face gave her a brief chill of instinctive fear. He did not resemble anything so monstrous as a mythical werewolf, but her reaction to his hybrid face was just as real.

She swallowed deeply and stepped back away from the pod, almost as if he would awaken and attack her as a rival predator. Then she looked back across the room at Kazama’s pod. She wondered what he had become, but she was almost afraid to look.

She put a hand up to her chest and felt her rapid heartbeat. “I – I don’t know how much more of this I can take right now,” she murmured to the SI.

“Feel free to take a moment to calm your nerves,” Arion suggested. “I think you will find Dr. Kazama’s new form more to your liking.”

“Are you sure about that?” she muttered. “I don’t know what he could have turned out to be that I will like. Even forewarned, this is upsetting me more than I thought it would.”

“Just relax. You will have to steel yourself to get used to seeing the new forms of our personnel. They are wide and varied, and you will eventually have to talk to them all.”

Kate nodded, fully understanding that he was right, but gave herself another few moments to use relaxation methods she had learned long ago. The stresses of being the top director of Project Pegasus had warranted learning such techniques to keep herself composed and stoic in front of those she had responsibilities over.

When she finally felt she was calm enough to proceed, she first looked at Arion, who gave her a reassuring smile and nod, and then she looked at Kazama’s pod. Readying herself for whatever it was she might find in that rectangular container, she let out a long sigh and then stepped forward.

She peered over in through the lid, and froze. The man’s new form was nothing that she had expected, and an unconscious smile crossed her features. Dr. Satoru Kazama had become a river otter, and his face was rather cute. He had retained his human size, but the dark brown fur was sleek, his ears were small, and the whiskers that sprouted from his muzzle were long and thick. He even possessed a bushy pair of eyebrows that blended well with the rest of his fur, but they were prominent enough that she could almost see his facial expressions with them already.

She studied him for another minute before she simply looked up at the ceiling and began laughing. It was a chuckle at first, but then strengthened into a full belly laugh. She had to hold onto the cryo pod with one hand while she wiped the tears of laughter from her face.

“Dr. Kate?”

The feline looked over at the waldo’s amused expression and shook her head. “I’m fine,” she said at last.

“Why did you laugh?”

“I wasn’t laughing at what he has become,” she explained with a grin, “but I think it was the sudden realization that he wasn’t a monster after seeing Will as a werewolf! The emotional relief was too much and I couldn’t help the release. I’m fine, really.”

Arion chuckled. “I am glad to hear it. As I said, you will have to get used to seeing everyone in their new forms, and your reactions to them can be a detriment or a benefit when you see them awake.”

“You’re right. There’s nothing we can do to reverse it all, so I have to get a grip on myself and show everyone the stern project director they’ve always known. They’ll need to see a confident face.”

“Very good.”

Kate looked down at the river otter a moment more. “Should we revive him next? The original mission protocol had the ship’s chief physician waking first.” She then looked across the room at the captain’s pod.

Arion followed her gaze. “At this point, I do not believe it will matter which one is awakened next, but before anyone else is revived, I want to give you a complete physical. There is only so much I can do from within the cryo pod, and since you were the first, we need to make sure you are healthy before we awaken the others. If we can establish that your organs are functioning well, your nervous and endocrine systems operating as they should with your hybridity and that nothing is malfunctioning, then we can proceed with either Dr. Kazama or Captain Robeson as you wish. In addition to everything else, you have just had a new duty assigned to you.”

“What duty is that?”

“Until Dr. Fernando can be revived, you will have to take on the role of counselor. You made it well enough through your personal shock and trauma, and you will be needed to help get the others through it too. Some of them may not be as accepting of the unexpected situation and may need your calming influence.”

Kate sighed, rubbed her eyes and then refocused on Arion’s waldo. “Now can I have some coffee?”

“Not until we know how it will affect your new physiology.”

“Tyrant.”

“The sooner we can establish that you are healthy and that stimulants are not harmful to your new body, the quicker we can ascertain that you may be welcome to have your coffee. Not before.”

Kate let out another embellished, drawn-out sigh. “Right. Let’s get this over with. I would rather have you do a physical on me than Dr. Kazama anyway.”

Chapter Seven

Rising Fur

Once Arion had completed a thoroughly comprehensive physical examination of the new hybrid feline, he presented Kate with a hot cup of fresh coffee as atonement. Despite that she was now the merged result of two different species, she was surprisingly healthy — healthier than she had been when fully human, in fact. It was still to be determined what new dietary requirements she might be facing, but the SI had determined at the least that there was nothing in a cup of coffee that should be harmful to her new physiology.

Drinking from a cup had to be done differently now. It was not easy to make a seal at the edge of the cup with a bifurcated lip, and more than once she dribbled some into her chest fur. She had never owned a domestic cat herself, but she remembered something she had seen on a video and tried lapping up her coffee instead of sipping it. To her amazement, the papillae spines on her tongue picked up liberal amounts of the liquid and she was more successful drinking her coffee this way.

She enjoyed her coffee while leaning idly against Captain Robeson’s cryo pod, her tablet reflecting the unit’s system data in one hand. She had difficulty using claw-tipped fingers on a touch-screen, but managed to pull up the information she wanted with some creative handling.

With a sigh, she set the tablet aside and looked in through the window at the man, deciding he was just as handsome in this form as he had been as a human. They were only barely close friends, but she had always felt an attraction to him. Workplace relationships, however, rarely worked out well so she had never given him even a hint how fond she had been of him.

At first, she had decided to have him awakened next as the captain of the ship, but knew deep down that Kazama would be offended if he wasn’t the next – especially since he had gone to sleep fully expecting to be the first. Arion had only just started decanting the good doctor, and would begin on Robeson and Andresen shortly thereafter, so she would have a little more time to herself before these “furmen” would join her in the Former Human Club.

When her coffee was gone, she walked to a counter to set down the cup and passed the mirrors on the way. She paused for a brief look at her reflection and had the sudden realization that she had been running around in nothing but her natural fur coat for the past three hours. Although she had already determined that all her private bits were fully covered, she was amazed at how comfortable she had become with her new form in such a short time.

Before Kazama was fully defrosted, however, she knew she probably needed to put on something, so she moved to the pod she had slept in for so many years and opened the clothing drawer at the foot end.

She set down her tablet, pulled out the wool sweater and raised a critical eyebrow at it. Wool… over fur? No, she did not think that would work at all. She started to pull it on regardless, but she did not even get her head through the neck hole before she already knew her supposition was correct. For the moment, she set it into the open pod and then reached for the slacks without even bothering with her underwear.

These were made of a slicker material than the woolly-pully, but she had to stretch out and point her digitigrade foot to get it down the leg of the pants, being extra-careful that her toe-claws didn't snag the delicate, light-weight fabric. She made it, however, and managed to get the other foot in as well, but when she pulled it up toward her waist, there was a new barrier. The waistband would not go over her tail, and even if she could, where would the tail go? Down into one of the legs or sticking straight up the back?

She could just get a knife or some scissors to cut a hole for the tail, but she was hesitant to cut up a perfectly good pair of slack regardless. She huffed in annoyance and shimmied back out of the slacks; putting them on had rubbed her fur the wrong direction anyway. Her normal clothing had never been designed to be worn by an animal, even a humanistic animal that was still primarily bipedal.

She dropped the pants in the pod with the sweater and looked into the drawer. Left was a bra, a pair of panties, ankle socks, a pair of shoes and her project hat – none of which she could wear without some kind of alteration. Even the cap would not fit on her head with her ears higher up on her skull; there was not enough room between them.

“Arion!” she exclaimed in frustration. The waldo was busy working with Kazama, but the SI’s voice answered from a nearby wall screen.

“Yes, Dr. Kate?”

“I’m covered in fur, but I still need clothing! As much as I would like to, I don’t think the ship’s personnel is going to want to run around naked once they’re up and awake!”

“As much as you would like to?” the SI repeated in amusement. “Does this mean you would prefer to run around naked?”

Kate smiled and shrugged with a nervous laugh. “Sure, why not?” she answered flippantly. “I’m as covered up with a coat of fur than I would be in my project uniform.”

“Would you be comfortable around your colleagues wearing nothing but your fur coat?”

“I haven’t felt self-conscious about it since you woke me up.”

“That may be so, but I would have to recommend that you consciously remember to keep your tail down if you decide to walk on all fours as you did earlier.”

“What difference would that make?”

“With your tail standing straight up as you walked, there was a part of you presented to me that was not covered by fur.”

Kate suddenly felt her skin flush beneath her fur. “Oh my…” she muttered. “Okay, perhaps some kind of shorts would be in order at the least.”

“I thought so. Do you remember where the tailor scanning room is located?”

Kate looked at the screen in silence for a moment, but then nodded. “Down the main corridor to the first junction, turn left and then it’s in the second compartment on the left.”

A floorplan with the route marked on it in yellow appeared on the screen. “Very good. Your memory still serves after so long.”

“To my memory, it’s only been a few weeks since I was in there last.”

“I can give your body a fresh laser scan and then we will see what I can design that will comfortably fit your new form. Material for the printer is still packed away, but we will see if we can come up with something before the others see a certain part of your furry nakedness.”

“On my way!”

***

When Kate returned to the cryo chamber, she walked straight to Robeson’s pod. Without any hesitation, she opened his clothing drawer and pulled out his long white shirt. She pulled it on, buttoned it up and then rolled up the sleeves to her elbows. The shirt tail hung to her knees, though it was tented in the back from her tail, giving her coverage even when she modeled it down on all fours.

Arion had informed her that it would be a few hours before he could print up a pair of shorts with a cutout for her tail and a strap over the top of it to keep the waistband in place. Footwear for her digitigrade feet would require additional research and engineering.  Each person brought out of hibernation would need to be scanned to provide them with some kind of clothing, but she was sure that some or most of them could probably get by with just a pair of species-appropriate shorts. Arion also suggested something like a pleated tube top for the women, but Kate assured him that she had enough coverage that she would not need one of those for herself.

During the years the project had spent with Arion-1 in construction, she had always felt chilly while on board the vessel, but now that she possessed her own private fur coat, she was quite comfortable. The captain’s shirt was nothing more than a covering against other eyes that would soon be looking at her.

Since the cryo chamber was not equipped with any place to sit other than inside the pods, she moved back out to the waiting room in the next compartment, but she had barely arranged her tail in a seat that was not designed for a being with a rear appendage before Arion spoke to her.

“Dr. Kazama is now waking up and I have already begun the decanting process for Captain Robeson. You should probably be present to help me keep the doctor calm when he discovers his new form.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll be right there.”

In the next compartment, she moved directly for Kazama’s resting place, but Arion’s waldo held up a hand to stop her. “It would probably be best if you stay out of his field of vision until we think he is ready to see you as you are now.” Kate responded only with a silent nod and the SI lowered the room lighting as he had done with her.

Dr. Kazama coughed once and cleared his throat, though his eyes were still closed. His small ears swiveled toward the waldo’s voice, but otherwise the physician remained relatively still.

“Doctor Kazama. This is your wake-up time. Please wake up.”

“Mm, awake,” muttered the otter around a thick tongue. His vocal cords were completely different than they had been and Kate realized that she did not recognize his voice anymore. She wondered if hers had changed too; she had not even thought about that since discovering her own transformation.

“Dr. Kazama, you are drifting. Please wake up.” The otter snorted forcefully, but said nothing. Arion detected that the furman was slipping back into sleep so he tried a different tactic.

“Calling Dr. Kazama. You are needed in Emergency.”

“What’sit?” the physician asked in a huff. “What th’ ‘mergency?” He still had not opened his eyes.

“There have been unexpected mutations and aberrations; lives could be in danger.”

Kazama’s eyes snapped open. He tried to sit up, but was still restrained by everything hooked up to him. “Arion!” he bellowed with a high-registered squeak. “Get me outta this! Now! We’ve got an emergency!”

“Dr. Kazama, please calm down and just lay quietly while I fully finish bringing you out of the system.”

“Is there an emergency or not? Hurry!”

“Doctor, we do have a situation, but it can wait until you are fully decanted.”

“You said there was an emergency!”

“That was merely a ruse to wake you up. You were resisting.”

Kazama exhaled impatiently, but then forced himself to relax. As the waldo worked on him, his eyes narrowed and studied the automaton. “You’ve changed.”

“Yes sir, we all have.”

“What do you mean by that?”

As gently as he could, Arion began with the same explanations he had given Kate. Throughout the exposition, the doctor stopped him a few times for clarification, but he seemed to take the news with unexpected professionalism.

Since he had been unable to move until all of his connections and the netting had been removed, he finally asked the biggest question on his mind.

“So, Arion,” he said calmly. “When are you going to tell me what I’ve turned into? Will I scare small children when I’m trying to examine a sore throat?”

“I doubt you will,” Arion’s waldo responded with a smile. “Dr. Kate says you are now actually cute.”

“Cute, huh? Well, at my age, I can accept cute. What am I, a puppy dog?” Before Arion could reply, the physician started looking around. “Wait — Dr. Kate? Is she already awake?”

“I’m here, Dr. Kazama.”

“I can’t see you.”

“I’m hiding in the dark until Arion is done with you.”

“You don’t sound like Kate.”

“I assure you it’s me.”

“Hmph. Why are you awake? I was supposed to be the first one decanted! Is anyone else up? What about Jessica?”

“Your nurse is still asleep. As the project director, Arion followed emergency protocol and thawed me out first, and no, I’m the only one awake besides yourself.”

“Dr. Kazama, I need to remove your elimination flange now.”

“Uh, Kate, it’s not that I embarrass easily, but…”

“Your dignity is secure. I’m facing the other way.”

“Thank you.”

As Arion disconnected him, Kazama distracted himself by looking and feeling of his furry arms. His webbed fingers were shorter than he remembered and they were tipped with claws instead of fingernails, but the primary thought on his mind was in hoping this would not be a hindrance when he had to perform a surgery. He marveled at the new digitigrade configuration of his feet too.

“Okay, Dr. Kazama. You are free to sit up.”

The doctor did just that, and although the room lighting was still dim, he took a look at his lower half and did a silent inventory of all his parts. The count came up with an additional appendage, a thick tail extending from his spine that he had been laying upon. He rubbed it as if to get feeling into the thing and then he looked up at the nearby waldo.

“Looking at my hands, feet – and this tail, I would assume that I’ve become some kind of aquatic mammal. Am I a beaver?”

“That is the wrong tail for a beaver,” Arion informed him. “You would now be classified as a hybrid of human and lutra canadensis – a river otter.”

“A river otter. Huh.” His overall body fur was dark chocolate brown, though he had fur of cream under his neck and over his chest, crotch and inner thighs. He appeared to be similar in size that he was before, though maybe not as tall, since his legs seemed shorter.

Arion offered him a hand to help him out of the cryo pod and he took it without a word. Once he was on his feet, he took a few steps around his bed, but then he saw a shadowy figure across the room. Suddenly recalling that he had been parading around in nothing but his fur, he went to his clothing drawer and retrieved his lab coat. He did not even try on the rest of his clothing, already surmising that none of it would suit him, but at least the lab garment would give him some coverage, even if it would now be a little long for his height. Sitting on top of the coat was his round-rimmed glasses and he picked them up out of habit.

He tried to put them on, but he noticed two things right away. The ear pieces were not designed to reach ears relocated near the top of his head, and when he simply held the lenses up to his eyes, things became blurry. He tried to read a biometric screen on the side of his cryo pod, but nothing came into focus until he lowered the lenses and looked at it directly. He delightfully realized that he no longer needed them to read, and he had been wearing glasses since he was a child. He quietly folded them and put them into his pocket.

“Lights, please,” he said to Arion. The room illumination gradually raised to normal and he immediately started looking for a mirror, but standing against a wall with her arms behind her was an anthropomorphic African lioness wearing a man’s long white shirt. “Kate?” he ventured in a quiet whisper.

“It’s me, believe it or not.”

“You don’t look or even sound anything like Kathleen Ruston.”

“Likewise with yourself, Satoru Kazama.” She gestured to the mirrors that still faced outward from the wall. “Go ahead, take a look at the new you.”

When he stepped up to look at his reflection, he glanced briefly at the lioness and then dropped his lab coat to the floor. Kate turned toward Arion to allow the otter a moment of naked privacy; while all of her bits were sufficiently covered up by her fur, not all of his were.

It only took a moment of looking at himself from several angles before he re-donned his lab coat. “Well,” he muttered to Arion when he rejoined Kate and the waldo, “it appears that all my regular clothes will need alteration.”

“It will be arranged. All personnel will be needing new clothing.”

The doctor looked at his companions, thought of something, and then returned to the mirrors. He inspected a rather impressive set of canine teeth in his mouth and clacked them together in satisfaction; he only hoped he had not swallowed the two false teeth that he used to have in his mouth when the new ones had formed.

Kazama rubbed a finger through his whiskers and blinked rapidly from the effect it had on him. He smiled, shook his head and then wrung his hands together. “Well, we will have time to go over the implications of our changes later, but now we should decant Captain Robeson and Mr. Andresen per mission protocols.”

“The process has already begun for both of them, each to awaken about sixty minutes apart, the first in forty-five minutes,” Arion announced. “Fluid transference has already begun for the captain, but the engineer’s body is still warming up.”

Kazama walked over to Robeson’s pod and pressed his thumb up against a biometric window to sign into the system. The screen rudely issued an off-key musical note and the otter tried again. After getting another error, he turned his thumb up to the light and studied it with a frown.

“Arion, my good friend, can you compare my thumbprint now to what you have on file for me?”

“Certainly.” Kazama put his thumb back on the glass and less than a moment later the SI gave this report. “Your new mustelid thumbs still possess a human-type print, and while it is similar, the whorls and lines are stretched beyond shapes recognizable to the scanner.”

“That means I won’t be able to log into any of my systems.”

“Not to worry, doctor. Since I can genetically confirm that you are Satoru Kazama, let me rescan each of your digits and I will override those in the system as your authenticated identification. Dr. Kate, I will need to do the same for you, as well as everyone else after they come out of hibernation.”

***

Kenneth Robeson did not react to his transformation as well as the ship’s doctor had – or even Kate. He screamed and passed out when he saw the anthropomorphic river otter before he had gotten any kind of an explanation. It took only a moment before he jerked and opened his eyes under the assault of the ammonium carbonate the doctor waved under his nose – a nose that was now many times more sensitive to smells than it ever had been.

“He might have reacted better if your face hadn’t been the first thing he saw when his eyes opened,” said a voice elsewhere in the dark room.

The monstrosity that stood over the captain grinned down at him, showing a sharp set of dental work beneath a furry and whiskered face. “He’s coming around,” said the river otter. “Nurse, prepare the anal probe.”

“Dr. Kazama!”

The mustelid laughed aloud. “Sorry, Kate; he was looking at me as if I was an alien who had abducted him.”

“I would too!”

The unseen voice was suddenly closer, right near Robeson’s ear. “Don’t mind him, Ken. That’s Dr. Kazama’s new face. I first thought it was cute, but that was only after I knew it was him.”

“Who – who are you p-people?” Robeson stammered, fright still coursing up and down his spine.

Then he heard the familiar voice of the SI as the waldo took Kazama’s place in his field of view. “Captain Robeson, this is Arion. You are still on Arion-1 and you have been awakened per mission protocol. As planned, we are fourteen days away from Bellerophon, but there has been an incident.”

“That animal you saw was our chief medical officer,” said the unseen speaker.

“That thing was Dr. Kazama?” he asked hoarsely. “Who are you? Is that Jessica? I don’t recognize your voice.”

“You know me as Dr. Kate, although my voice is only just one thing that’s changed about me. The incident that Arion mentioned has affected me too. It’s affected us all with mutations.”

“Mutations…” Robeson repeated. He swallowed and licked his lips with a thick tongue, a strange sensation in itself. “Why’s it dark in here?”

“Originally,” Arion answered, “the lights were down so we could ease you into an explanation before you saw anyone else.”

“Before you could have a chance to panic,” Kate added. “Dr. Kazama didn’t stick to the plan.”

“Sorry about that, my friend,” said the otter’s voice. Chastised, Kazama was now staying out of sight. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Yet you did,” muttered the captain. He closed his eyes, still feeling the IV tubes and neuro-netting cocooned around him. “Arion, please tell me what’s going on. If those others really are Satoru and Kathleen, they can stay quiet and let you give me an explanation.”

The waldo gave each of the others a brief look and they both nodded to him silently. Now that he could elucidate without interruption, Arion explained to Captain Robeson what he needed to know.

***

“Kazama is wearing his lab coat, Kate has stolen my shirt and I doubt even my shorts will fit me anymore. What am I going to wear?” Robeson sat up in his cryo pod, his hands casually covering his crotch. He looked over at the lioness and raised a furry eyebrow. “What’s up with that, anyway? Usually a woman wouldn’t be wearing a man’s shirt unless it was the morning after they’d slept together. Have we slept together, Kate?”

The lion-woman laughed aloud and walked saucily toward his pod, toying playfully with the top buttons of the shirt. “What? You’re not chivalrous enough to let a lady cover up from prying eyes? You want to see what’s beneath your shirt?”

Robeson nearly choked. Kathleen Ruston had never come onto him before. Granted, he had opened with his remark, but for the stoic project director to respond the way she did certainly surprised him. Was this a result of her transformation into a cat or was she suffering from a chemical imbalance?

“I, uh—”

“Relax,” she told the cougar with a grin. “You have more to cover up than I do.” Her quick glance toward his hands made his face flush beneath his facial fur, but even more so when she fully unbuttoned the shirt and pulled it from her shoulders. She stood there bare in just her fur, holding out the garment toward him just out of reach. A soft growl escaped his throat and he stretched out his fingers to snare it from her with his claw tips. He draped it across his lap and stared at her.

Kate spread her arms out wide and did a full turn, allowing him and Kazama to examine her from all sides. “As you can see, my fur more than gives me adequate coverage – unless I’m on all fours, and then I just need to remember to keep my tail down.”

“Wait… all fours?” Kazama repeated. It was something he had not considered since his awakening, despite that he knew they all now possessed digitigrade feet.

Kate got down on all four limbs, mindful to keep her rear appendage lowered this time, and casually paced around the compartment. While doing so, it suddenly occurred to her why her chest was smaller than it had been. When down on all fours, human-style breasts would have gotten in the way of her arms – or would that now be her front legs? In nature, a female’s mammaries would not extend and fill up with milk until she would need to feed her offspring; they would also be located lower on her abdomen. It now made sense.

She looked back at the males watching her, and then stood up again. “So,” she teased, “are you seeing any bits of me that you shouldn’t?”

Kazama coughed into a hand and Robeson shook his head in quiet amazement. “No bits, Kate, you’re covered.”

“Well, Ken, it’s your turn. Get out of your bed and show us all what you look like.” She surprised him yet again. In their years of association, she had never called him by his first name in casual conversation and now she had done it twice. This was a side of Kate he had not seen before; she had always kept things official between them, as she did with everyone on the project.

Without taking his eyes off of her form, he pulled the shirt up around his shoulders and slid his arms into it, but when he began to button it up, he saw a flaw in the plan. The shirt did not hang as low on him as it did her; he would get no real coverage where he needed it most, so he pulled it back off and set it on the cushion beside him.  Oh well…

Robeson started to get up, but as Kate had discovered earlier, his new digitigrade feet were different to stand up on, and he felt unsure of himself for a moment. He held onto the side of the cryo pod and then took a tentative step out into the room. Kate’s eyes were immediately drawn to his nakedness and she had to avert her eyes. His fur was not thick enough to hide his maleness, even if one part was sheathed and the remainder was covered over in its own thin coat of short fur.

His tail whipped out behind him to aid with counterbalance and he soon found his equilibrium. Instead of parading around the room as Kate had done, the male cougar made his way over to the mirrors, a popular destination of the room.

Robeson’s fur color was uniform sandy brown with some darkening toward his spine, stretching from the back of his neck down along to the base of his tail. Underlying the fur, however, his skin tone was just as dark as it had been before. His tail was slightly lighter than the rest of his fur, matching the color of his sides, under his arms and inside his legs; it was thick in diameter and was long enough so the blackened tip just touched the floor at his elongated feet when it was not moving in tune with his emotions.

The muscles of his neck, shoulders, arms, legs and abdomen were clearly defined, despite that he had not exercised in over three quarters of a century. He was secretly delighted by this, as he had always enjoyed physical activity, even when he had been stationed on El-Five and made use of their gym facilities.

He reached up to touch and turn his small round ears, looking at them in the mirrors, and noted how the backs were dark-rimmed as to be almost black with a nebulous white area near the middle. His scalp was covered over with the same fur that covered his face, though it was pure black on top, likely a holdover from his original hair color.

The tip of his broad nose was a dusty brown, but his lips, jaws and neck were off-white. The fur of his nose was the color of sand with darker browns tinting his cheeks and patches over his eyes. There was a darker brown strip leading up above his nose to his forehead, with two dark vertical strips an inch long right above the inside corner of each eye. The nose and muzzle extended out into his field of vision and would likely take some getting used to.

Despite that it was not his original reflection looking back at him, Ken Robeson felt as if he had been dealt a decent hand concerning his new physical appearance. Of course, as soon as that thought registered in his mind, he suddenly remembered that despite his fur, he was still naked.

Covering up his privates, he turned back toward his cryo pod. “Okay,” he said at last, “I need to see if I can make my shorts work.”

“They won’t fit with your new tail,” Kazama murmured, keeping his lab coat buttoned around him.

The mountain lion turned toward the surgeon with a snarl. “Give me a scalpel and I will alter them myself!”

“Not a chance,” Kazama sneered back. “Cutting the material will dull the edge. Find something else!”

“How about a kilt?” Arion suggested. “It would provide coverage, as well as allow for quadruped locomotion.” Robeson looked at the waldo and only now seemed to notice that even the android body had changed over the years, specifically in the look and movements in the face. He did not mention it, however, but instead sighed aloud and walked back to his cryo pod.

“There are no kilts in my wardrobe,” he muttered in resignation, reaching for his long shirt. He wrapped it around his waist and fastened a couple of the buttons to the side of his hip and then tied the sleeves together also. It looked ridiculous, but would suffice until appropriate clothing could be printed for him.

For more than the transformation of him and his companions, the one fact that disconcerted the captain the most was the look of intensity he kept seeing on Kate’s face. Although he was not yet used to her new visage, he could almost recognize a look of hunger in her eyes, and this worried him. How much of that was herself and how much was the cat she was blended with?

“Captain, Mr. Andresen will be conscious soon,” Arion reported, “but there is time enough for Dr. Kazama to give you a comprehensive physical to make sure everything is functioning well within you.”

Robeson glanced briefly at Kate and she cleared her throat. “I am going to look in on the others,” she said, turning to enter the adjacent compartment that held the rest of the colony crew in slumber. “You can proceed without me watching.”

The project director did not see Robeson’s look of relief when she disappeared through the doorway.

***

After Kate shut the door behind her, she leaned back against it and rubbed her forehead. She was experiencing feelings and emotions foreign to her, and she knew it had to be her hybrid nature. The feline genetic material that had donated its DNA in the transformation process had never been a conscious, breathing creature, so she had no illusions that she was feeling what the real lioness had felt. Still, whether it was feline instinct or a physiological imbalance while her own consciousness was still sorting out what she was supposed to be, the feelings were troubling.

Arion had said that she would have to play the role of counselor to those coming out of cryo sleep, but how was she supposed to help others when she could not help herself? What they needed – what she needed – was an actual psychoanalyst. When it came time to decant the rest of the personnel, perhaps the counselor should be one of the first.

She straightened up and looked out into the compartment she had entered. The light panels were still dim, but she could see cryo pods stretching out into the gloom, lined up side by side with their heads toward the fore end of the vessel. Unlike the command staff cryo room, this was fully open to the whole rotating deck and she could faintly see the floor curving up into darkness.

“Lights, please.” Without a verbal response from the SI, the overhead panels strengthened slowly until it was up to full illumination. Kate’s intention was to look in on each of all the remaining pods, but now she felt hesitant, remembering her reaction to seeing Will Andresen’s new form. Arion had told her that the remaining personnel were all mammal types, so she need not have worried if she would see any bug-eyed monsters or reptilian aliens, but she had to admit that her imagination was her worst adversary right now.

Steeling her nerves and locking down her resolve, Kate stepped toward the first pod. Peering at the name on the readout, it was Rodney Vincent, the ship’s First Officer, but when she looked in through the glasteel top, she did not see a youthful man with blond hair, but instead saw the face of a snow leopard. She stared in at him for a long moment, almost expecting him to open his eyes and look up at her, but he remained as he had for the greater part of a century, peacefully asleep. She wondered if he had retained his blue eyes or if they had turned a different color. Snow leopards were known to have blue eyes and they would have looked good with his facial markings.

She did not linger and stepped around his pod to the next one. Dr. Bali Manhigh was their chief botanist, someone who would be instrumental discovering things about the native flora, particularly if any of it was dangerous – or safe to eat. She would not have recognized this man had she not read his name on the readout. Instead of a handsome, dark-skinned doctor, she saw a fully fluffy canine type in pure white fur with a dark undertone. She was not exactly sure, but it appeared that he had taken on the qualities of a Samoyed or a white Siberian husky. Looking at his face, she could imagine his familiar grin, but with a pink tongue handing out of his canine mouth. The thought made her smile.

When she stepped around to the next pod, she recoiled in sudden surprise. Their chief of security, Ethan Edwards was now the hybrid of man and brown bear, and his bulk filled the interior of the pod as if he had been stuffed into one too small for him. Even the neuro-netting seemed stretched to capacity. It was a good thing he was asleep or she felt that he might be fighting to get out of the confines. She hoped the former marine was not claustrophobic, but imagined that Arion would likely make sure he had more room to move around before he awakened him.

The next pod was the one she had been looking for. Antony Fernando’s counseling services would be needed once this lot discovered what had happened to them, and she felt she might even be first in line to see him.

When she looked in on him, she stood up straight with a gasp, her fingers gripping the side of the pod tensely. His pointed nose was tilted to the side, as if he had moved his head just as he had gone to sleep, but the colors of his fur were unmistakable without even seeing his monochromatic fluffy tail sprouting out along beside him.

Kate swallowed and studied him some more. Who would counsel the counselor, especially when he had turned out to be a striped skunk? If this one did not develop psychological issues from his transformation, she would be impressed. She just hoped he did not spray anyone when he woke up to the surprise.

The next pod contained a rather cute red panda. Kate thought the woman within would probably like her new look in time, but she would still have to go through the shock of learning what had happened to her. Jessica Heald was a registered nurse, but her official designation for the project was a farmer when Dr. Kazama was not utilizing her for medical assistance. Kate was sure that the river otter would want her up and about soon to assist him decanting the rest of their numbers.

The project director looked up and her eyes followed the line of hibernation pods around the outer curve of the rotating deck. There was no sense of movement, but the visual perspective was still a little disconcerting, and this even after having spent the past year or so of her life walking the deck after it had been constructed, sealed and rotating to generate Earth-normal gravity to keep their feet on the floor.

What more would she see in through the other ninety pods laid out along the deck? She sighed, rubbed a hand over her muzzle, and then approached the next one.

It was sometime later when Arion’s voice broke her from her musings. “Dr. Kate. Mr. Andresen will be waking soon if you would like to rejoin us.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” She still had not seen everyone’s new forms, but after so many different animal types, her nerves were so shaken by now that it would almost be a relief to go back into the other compartment.

***

Despite all those she had seen, William Andresen was a different animal altogether, figuratively as well as literally. The wolf-man took the news of their transformation with a flair of personal amusement. Having grown up reading science fiction and fantasy novels since his youth, the chief engineer’s mind had been primed for years, and he saw being turned into a “furry” as more fascinating than frightening.

Up and out of his pod after awakening and examining himself in the mirrors, he did not seem to care that he was naked in front of the others. More so than the captain or the doctor, he was sufficiently covered up solely due to his dense lupine coat of long reddish fur and he was wholly unconcerned; even Kate had difficulty seeing the outline of anything inappropriate through all that thick fur.

He turned around with a wide sweep of his bushy tail and planted his hands on his hips. “Well, that’s a heck of a note!” he remarked with a toothy grin. “Still, I can’t say that I’m disappointed with my lot. I could’ve done worse!”

“Worse…” Kate muttered. “I don’t suppose Arion has told you all about the worst part.”

“Eh?” Kazama murmured, looking toward the waldo. “What could be worse that turning into a bunch of animals?”

“We have had two RIPs as a result.”

Prompted by the lioness, Arion informed them of the mutations that resulted in two transformations that had not been genetically viable. They were all familiar with the young engaged couple, each of whom had been well-liked. The situation was bad enough, but the loss of Eric and Felicia would put the fear of Hell into each and every one of them. This would serve to remind them that they were all lucky to have made reasonable transformations, but two had not been able to dodge that proverbial bullet.

Arion studied each of the furmen in the room, watched as the woman and three men battled their own internal emotions. It was several long moments before Andresen spoke.

“We will mourn them, of course,” he said in a somber tone, “but for those of us among the living, we still have a job to do.”

“What do you mean?” Kate asked.

Andresen looked around the room, as if seeing the entire ship in his gaze. “We all appear to be relatively healthy and in full control of our minds and faculties. I don’t seem to be having any amnesia — I’m still remembering facts, figures and personal memories — so as soon as the good doctor pronounces me a fit little doggy, I would like to take a tour of this old ship and make sure its systems and structural integrity are all sound.”

“I can guarantee that you will find everything in good order, despite my age,” reported the SI.

Andresen gave the waldo an amused canine grin. “That may be so, but I would like to see for myself — otherwise, why would you have even needed a chief engineer?”

“He’s got a point,” Robeson remarked. “We all still have duties and responsibilities, no matter what each of us now look like.”

“We need to sit and talk about our next move,” suggested Kate, “and I think we would all be in a better mood if we discuss it over supper. I don’t know about anyone else, but my body burned off my last meal ages ago and I’m hungry!”

Dr. Kazama chirped unexpectedly and he seemed amused by the noise of excitement he had just made. “I think that is a great idea, Kate.” He looked over at the waldo and pointed toward his own mouth. “Do you think you can have the galley systems prepare something appropriate for this maw? I’m sure each of us will have new dietary requirements and it might take a series of personal taste tests to see what we can and will eat now.”

Arion nodded. “I think something can be prepared. While I am taking care of that, you should all visit the tailor scanning room so I can also arrange to print out some suitable clothing for each of you. Dr. Kate has already been scanned for a pair of shorts, but I think all of you will be in a better frame of mind knowing you will not have to go about your duties in nothing but your fur.”

Chapter Eight

Mission Plan

“The first thing we will need to do when we’re on the surface is to alter the chairs for our tails,” the wolf murmured between the last bites of his meal.

“Perhaps our chief engineer can design something appropriate,” the cougar suggested.

Andresen nodded. “At first glance, I would strengthen the back support on the left side and leave an opening from the right-hand side where we could slide our tails into. We could sit on the chairs without having to sit on our tails or force them to rest against the seat back.”

“Why not just use a center post and leave both sides open?”

“Because my tail is already above the center of my butt and I don’t want it resting against a post that’s also in the center.”

Dr. Kazama looked down at his plate and licked his lips. Although the meal that Arion had prepared for him had used the food printers instead of actual foodstuffs from storage in stasis, it had tasted surprisingly like real fish. He imagined the same held true for the others, who had gotten various cuts of a steak-like dinner with a few faux-vegetables for sides, but he silently noted that each of them had paid more attention to the meats than they did the veggies; they were all still omnivores, but now more carnivorous than they had been before.

The four of them were seated around a small table in the galley one deck above the rest of the hibernating crew. The discussion had begun when they had taken their seats, but paused when Arion had brought them their meals. Now that they had all been taken care of, the SI had returned his waldo to a storage locker. He was still in command of the ship’s operations and could take part in the conversations as readily as he had in the past; he currently watched the small group from a wall-mounted monitor.

“New chairs and new clothes would all be nice,” Kate remarked, “but more importantly, we still need to decide what to do about the rest that are still sleeping.”

Kazama rubbed his forehead. “I can decant them all, but I don’t know if I can handle another ninety-four panicked awakenings. Going by just the four of us alone, we all had different reactions to our transformations.” He looked over at the lupine furman. “Very few of them will be as satisfied as our engineer was when he awoke.” Andresen gave him a big toothy grin, but otherwise did not respond.

“I can almost guarantee that I will have nightmares about my awakening the first time I lay down to sleep,” Robeson grumbled, pushing his mostly-empty plate away from him.

“We need to decant Antony Fernando next,” Kate suggested. “He’s the crew psychoanalyst and will need to provide counseling for everyone. That’s his job and experience, so he should be the one to face each of the frantic personalities when they make the big discovery.”

Robeson looked up in interest. “I had forgotten we’d brought a shrink along,” said the cougar.

“He can certainly help, but there may be an issue decanting him,” Kate said with a frown.

Andresen looked over at the lioness. “What’s the problem?”

“I took a walk to look in at some of the others and saw what he’s become.”

“How will that make a difference decanting him?”

Kate looked over at the captain and shook her head. “You called him a shrink, but with his change, I’m afraid others will call him the colony stink.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Don’t tell me,” Andresen said in sudden dismay. “He’s got a striped tail!”

“Yes, Antony is a striped skunk.”

“Why would we even bring the genetic material of skunks to Belle?”

Kate crossed arms across her furry chest. “I’m not the one who made that decision. That list was compiled by a committee.”

“Why would we bring half of what we did anyway?” Robeson asked rhetorically. “Anything beyond livestock would be considered exotic and not a necessity.”

“Most of the exotics weren’t even planned for release on Belle unless some disaster befell the Earth. We brought them purely as species backups so nothing might go extinct, but we are free to let them out if we decide the new ecosystem can handle them.”

Kazama coughed into a hand; the otter’s face reflected internal turmoil. “Arion, maybe you should be the one to decant Counselor Fernando; the rest of us can wait up here until he’s awake and calmed down.”

“Yes, that might be for the best,” agreed the SI.

“Why have Arion do it?” Robeson asked.

“Because I don’t want to be the one who gets sprayed when he wakes up and panics after he finds out what happened to him!”

“He’s gonna need a shrink, himself,” Andresen muttered. “I would!” He looked at the doctor and put his furry elbows up on the table. “Can’t you just snip his scent glands before he wakes up to spray everything in panicked alarm?”

Kazama gave the wolf a look of longsuffering. “He’s lying on his back with his scent glands beneath him. How am I going to do surgery on them before he comes out of cryo sleep? In order to turn him over where I could raise his tail, the neuro-netting and all of his IVs would first need to be removed. I can’t do that without decanting him.”

Andresen did not have a response to that, but the doctor continued. “Technically, I could, but multiple fluid transfer processes in a short amount of time would place such a physical strain on his system that when he was hooked back up to everything, he would likely have a stroke when he awoke — and I’m not even talking about the psychological stress. The physiological strain alone would likely kill him!”

“When you remove his metal diaper, could you just plug him up with a cork or something so he doesn’t spray from sheer instinct when he gets the shock of finding out what’s happened to him?”

The otter looked incredulous and glanced back and forth between Kate and Robeson. “A cork, he says! Andresen, your sense of humor astounds me.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” the wolf responded tartly. “I was thinking of the problem from an engineering standpoint.”

“That wouldn’t work anyway,” Robeson said. “He would already be awake by the time the flange is removed, so that would be too late —”

“I have a suggestion,” Arion interjected, but Kate spoke at the same time.

“Wait – the flange!” she said in a rush. “It would still be in place and would vacuum away any spray he releases — after all, that’s what it does with the rest of our bodily wastes!”

Robeson tried to snap his fingers, but his new padded digits were unable to make the desired sound. “Of course! The spray would be contained and it would also allow Mr. Fernando to retain somesemblance of dignity than just spewing toxic fluids across the room by accident!”

Kazama nodded in agreement. “I don’t know why none of us thought of that at the beginning of this discussion.” He looked up at the wall screen. “You had another suggestion, Arion?”

“I was going to suggest leaving the flange in place to contain potential spray, but Dr. Kate beat me to it.”

“Great minds think alike,” Kate quoted with amusement.

Andresen drummed his fingers on the table. “Once Antony is awake and calm, maybe then he will agree to have Dr. Kazama snip his butt glands. He might be walking funny for a while, but he won’t accidentally let anything slip out.”

“That will be Mr. Fernando’s decision to make,” said the physician, “but I will present the offer at the right time.”

The group fell silent for several moments with nothing but the constant underlying hum of the ship’s systems making a sound.

“What about the rest of the crew?” Captain Robeson asked quietly. “Are there any others that would present a potential danger?”

Kazama pointed a short finger at the cougar, wolf and then the lioness, all in turn. “Each of you could be potentially dangerous, yourselves, specifically if you woke up disoriented and decided a river otter would make a nice waking breakfast.”

Robeson looked chastised. “That’s true, but what I meant was if we had anyone else like Mr. Fernando who might present a problem. Getting sprayed by a skunk might not be life-threatening, but that’s not something any of us would like to experience from a coworker.”

Kate rubbed the base of her tail where it had been up against the seat back. “I didn’t get a chance to look at everyone, but while there’s quite a mix of species of both predator and prey types, I did not see anyone else who would present a problem more than any of us here would. Dr. Kazama is right – most of us would be a potential danger if we were a bunch of wild animals thrown together, but we still have our intelligence and our humanity to keep our baser instincts under control.”

“So, do we start waking them up right away due to the emergency?”

“I would advise against decanting anyone else at this time,” Arion responded. “Now that the primary command staff has been revived, I have activated life support systems for you on all decks, but there will still be limited resources until orbital insertion around Bellerophon in two weeks.”

“Mission protocols specify that we don’t wake the rest of the crew until we are in orbit around Belle,” Kate reminded her companions.

“That was put in place to conserve food, water and air until it was necessary to support everyone,” Andresen added, “and it also limits our bodies from prolonged microgravity. If we decant everybody now, we might be running low on these essentials by the time we get to the planet, and that’s beside the fact that there simply isn’t room for that many bodies within the ship’s corridors to be awake at the same time; Arion-1 wasn’t designed to sustain more than a handful all at once and it wasn’t equipped with staterooms to house them. This ship is nothing more than a cargo freighter, not a cruise ship. Even the four of us awake now will need to find places out of the way to sleep. Once we’re in orbit over Belle, it was always intended that we’d need to start offloading everyone to the surface as soon as we select the prime real estate where we’ll build our new homes. The plan is to keep everyone sleeping until just before they are to disembark to the colony site.”

“We should have enough overlap of resources so that even if we have to wait on the weather or some other situation, we can all stay on board, but we won’t be able to sustain everyone for more than one or two weeks beyond decanting at the most,” Robeson told them, “Standing room aside.”

“What about Mr. Fernando? Do we go ahead and wake him?” Kazama asked.

“Best not to risk taxing those limited resources,” the project director answered. “Unless any of you need his services now, we’ll let him sleep, but he will be the first to rise once we are in orbit.”

“No, I don’t need to talk to him yet,” Robeson answered. “Maybe later, though.” Neither of the others voiced needing a shrink yet either.

Kate nodded. “Then it’s settled. We will hit the snooze button for our friend Antony for now.”

“Once he’s up and about, the next we’ll decant should be our shuttle pilots since they’ll be needed to transfer everyone to the surface.”

“Agreed.”

“I need my nurse, too, preferably before the pilots,” Kazama added.

No one objected to that, so Andresen reached over to Kate’s plate and picked up a small morsel of meat the lioness had not eaten; she hissed at him playfully. The wolf cowered in mock fear and then popped the scrap into his mouth.

“I know this is not meat, but Arion’s food printers did a remarkable job with the taste and texture,” he said after chewing it. “The four of us will be eating this stuff for the next couple of weeks, but I am already looking forward to landing so we can break out the real food.”

“What you just ate is real food,” Arion reminded him. “Your steak and potatoes were produced from raw elements just as real as what they were designed to look and taste like.”

“What are you using for raw elements?” the wolf asked.

“Best not to ask questions you really don’t want answered,” Kate cautioned him.

Arion’s face looked out from the screen, the hint of a smile across his features. “The answer to your query, Mr. Andresen, is that—”

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to know.”

“As you wish.”

Kate laughed aloud. “Wise wolf.”

“Anyway, you all know what I mean,” the engineer acquiesced. “I want a real steak, from a real cow.” He looked across the table at the ship’s captain and frowned. “You look like you’ve got indigestion, Ken. Are you afraid of what you might have just eaten?”

“No, the food was good,” answered the cougar. “I was just thinking of the demands we’ll probably get for us to turn the ship around, put everyone back into cryo and head back to Earth.”

“No can do. Not possible.”

“Even if we could, over a hundred fifty years would have passed by the time we got back to Earth,” Kazama retorted. “Most of humanity will have forgotten about us by that time, so how do you think they would react when a shipload of talking animals shows up in orbit? They’d think it was an alien invasion and nuke us out of the sky before we could explain anything!”

“We would never make it back anyway,” Andresen remarked. “That this was a one-way trip across interstellar space was fully understood when each of us signed onto the project. Even if we did as you suggest, Arion-1 wasn’t designed to make a decades-long return to Earth. The cryo equipment, fluids and materials were only good for one use to get us to our destination, not to mention the fuel needed to get the ship up to interstellar speeds.”

Kazama crossed his arms and felt them bind against his ill-fitting lab coat. “We don’t have the necessary resources to put everyone back into cryo and this isn’t a generation ship where we would all live out our lives and hope our offspring survives to make it back. Again — we don’t have enough of that limited food and water to last beyond a few more weeks, much less seventy-five-plus years for such a return.”

“With ninety-eight lives on board,” Andresen added, “we would eventually run out of air as the oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers would be over-taxed. We would probably all suffocate long before we ran out of available elements for the food printers as well as eating all the livestock still sleeping.”

“Going back is not an option and we’ll have to discourage such demands,” Kate said in finality. “We must follow the mission plan and disembark soon after we get to Belle. We will only survive by doing what we came to do — no matter if we’re a bunch of furmen or the humans we started out to be, only Bellerophon can save us now.”

***

“Dr. Kate, mission logs with full details and conjectures on insufficient shielding and resultant crew anthropomorphism have been sent. Time of delivery to Earth monitoring stations will take approximately fifty-six years at near-light travel. Arion-2 will receive the message in twenty-nine months.”

“I thought our other ship was sixty months behind us?”

“Providing they launched on time, that would be true, but they are speeding toward us and our message is speeding toward them, greatly shortening the distance between them as each travel toward the other.”

The director nodded her leonine head and pulled at the new shorts that had been printed for her. The opening for her tail was adequate and the snap-strap over the top of the appendage to keep the waistband in place did not bind, but despite the fit for her new anatomy, she had already gotten used to going without them; the material felt confining over her coat of fur and she was tempted to shed them altogether, despite that the director of the entire project should present a responsible figure.

The shorts were also the same tan color as her fur, so from a distance, it still looked as if she was running around bottomless; she would have definitely chosen a contrasting color. Arion was intelligent with many things, but designing clothing was an area where he seemed to be lacking. He had also offered to make her a covering for her chest in the fashion of a lightweight tube top, but since she was sufficiently covered up by her own fur, she opted to go without one.

Refocusing on the task at hand, she drummed her claws on the galley table and looked up at the monitor screen. The others had scattered to other areas of the ship, checking on their own departments; Dr. Kazama had gone to make a medical examination of the two RIPs, Will Andresen was in engineering to inspect the tachyon drive, and Ken Robeson was on the bridge to go over the navigational logs with the SI.

“Even if your counterpart on Arion-2 receives our transmission,” Kate said, “he — you would have already discovered transformations among the fifteen hundred in cryo and it would be too late to do anything about it now.”

“This is true,” Arion agreed. “Dr. Kazama and I will continue to study what has happened, but it is unlikely we would have anything to add to any research that I may have already done on Arion-2.”

“If nothing else, our report will let you know that it wasn’t unique to that ship, but happened to all of us.”

“This is providing that it happened to Arion-2 as it did with us.”

The lioness looked up. “It didn’t even occur to me that it might have only affected us,” she mused.

“There is no way to know at this time. Captain Robeson noted that on our journey to 51 Peg, we passed within a few light-years of Iota Pegasi, a childless spectroscopic binary star that makes up one of the primaries of the Pegasus constellation. He speculates that whatever type of radiation that triggered the changes may have originated there. It is the only other stellar object we have come close to on our flight plan, but it being the root cause is nothing more than speculation. However, while we have no supporting evidence of this, I presume to agree with the captain to its possibility. This bit of conjecture was a last-moment addition to our transmission, so if Earth sends subsequent vessels out to us, they might be well to alter course to avoid traveling anywhere near Iota since we have no way of countering the effects our ship has encountered. It will add extra travel time, but if it is expected and included in mission flight plans, all cryo sleep times can be adjusted.”

Kate frowned, which made her feline features look incredibly sad. “In the decades we’ve been away, Earth could have already sent dozens of ships to other stars in all directions. The phenomenon may not be limited to Iota and may be more common in interstellar space than we know.”

“A likely possibility. If that is the case, then Earth may be seeding other exoplanets with anthropomorphic hybrids of humanity.”

Chapter Nine

Hybrids of Humanity

“Dr. Antony Fernando. This is your wake-up alarm. Please wake up.”

The counselor swallowed and then licked his lips, but kept his eyes closed. “Hi Arion. Wh’ time’s it?” he whispered.

“Good morning, Dr. Fernando. The ship’s time is 0635.”

“Tha’s too early. Wake me in ‘n hour.”

“Sorry, doctor, but it is time to face a new day.”

(sigh) “I could really use another hour,” the counselor said with a little more clarity, “but duty is duty. Does someone need my help?”

“As a matter of fact, there are several who could benefit from your expertise.”

“Oh, all right.” The man opened his eyes with a little effort, but he saw nothing but a dark gray room and the raised lid of his pod in the gloom above him.

“Why’m getting up now? You haven’t even turn’d on th’lights yet.” He struggled to sit up, but was restrained by the neural-netting; the IV tubes seemed to have been removed already. He relaxed back against the cushion, but something seemed out of place. “Feels weird coming out this time.”

“Sorry, Doctor. The lights are down for a purpose. Before you are released from everything, we need to have a discussion.”

Fernando blinked several times and swallowed again. “Sounds ominous, but you have a captive audience.” He chuckled at his lame little joke, but realizing that he was still wearing the flange, he urinated into it without preamble. He felt the cleansing and strangely enough, he felt a little more alert afterward.

“What’s the topic of our discussion?”

“The topic would be Unexpected Changes.”

“Go on.”

“To be brief, Arion-1 has safely reached the 51 Pegasi system and we are now two days away from orbit. During the long journey, however, this ship encountered unknown interstellar radiation that we had no protection against. This resulted in alterations to the genetic makeup of sleeping human personnel.”

“Genetic alterations? You mean that we have changed?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess… we reverted to an earlier state and have become the missing link that we have long been searching for.”

“Not quite, Doctor, but you are thinking in the right direction.”

Fernando lightly bit his bottom lip and even that felt strange. “Give me a moment to process that before you give me more.”

“Certainly.”

The counselor was quiet for several moments, and had there been anyone else in the room with him, they might have thought he had fallen back asleep. His mind was active, however, and he worked through a calming technique to combat the adrenaline that had quickly surged with the SI’s brief revelation.

“Okay,” he said at last. “I know there’s more to it than that, so go ahead and give me the low-down.”

For the next twenty minutes, Arion presented the counselor with a comprehensive explanation of the incident and its results. Fernando listened to everything quietly, forcing himself not to interrupt until he had all of the information, but by the time he had everything up to his awakening, his pulse had quickened and he was struggling even to use those calming methods again.

“Uhm, help…” he said at last. “Something to calm my nerves, please – maybe a finger or two of Maker’s Mark whisky?”

“Have a mild sedative instead, Dr. Fernando.” It took only a few moments for the counselor’s heart rate and breathing to return to something close to normal.

“Thank you, my good friend.”

“It is understandable. You are welcome.”

“Now for the million-dollar question,” Fernando murmured, “out of all the genetic material we are carrying, which one wound up in me? Start with its scientific name, just to prepare me.”

“Mephitis mephitis.”

“Okay, you got me. I don’t know why I asked you to do that. I don’t know what that is.”

“Striped skunk.”

Antony Fernando laughed aloud, and then continued laughing for nearly a full minute. When he finally got control of himself, he snickered a bit and then ended with an amused chuckle. “Arion, my friend, I know from experience that you have a sense of humor, but somehow I don’t think you’re teasing me right now.”

“I am sorry to inform you that I am serious. The species your DNA has been merged with is an actual striped skunk and your associates are very concerned for you.”

“My associates?

“Captain Robeson, Dr. Ruston, Dr. Kazama and Chief Engineer Andresen. All of them were successfully revived almost two weeks ago per the mission schedule, each with their own genetic changes to cope with. You were not actually intended to be decanted for another two days, but it was felt you might need the time to come to terms with your transformation before your services might be needed to help others through their own changes.”

“Where are they? I assumed Dr. Kazama would be here to watch over my decanting.”

“They are awaiting your presence in the galley on the next deck. For personal reasons, Dr. Kazama asked me to take care of your awakening.”

“I see. Was he afraid that I might spray him in panic?”

“Very perceptive, Doctor. That is the primary reason for his request.”

“Huh… well, I can’t say that I blame him.” With his arms at his sides, he stretched out the fingers of one hand and tapped a claw tip against the flange between his thighs. “It’s a good precaution that I’m still wearing this,” he said. “My abuela always called me her little stinker, but now that I can be, I can’t say I am in the mood to spray anyone.”

“I am glad to hear it. Each of your associates had different waking reactions than one another and it was unknown how you might react.”

Fernando fell quiet again, but when he said nothing more for several minutes, Arion’s voice issued from the darkness.

“Dr. Fernando?”

“Yes, Arion. I’m still here, just thinking – internalizing what you’ve told me.”

“Do you need assistance?”

“Actually, no, though I do admit that I am feeling impatient to get up and see my new chassis. I once had a college roommate who told me that he’d had a de-scented skunk as a pet when he was younger and I’d always found that fascinating. He said it was just as affectionate and playful as any cat he’d ever had, but its fur was not at soft as you would think from looking at it.”

“Do you remember my waldo?”

“Hmm, oh yes, your robot self. I saw it around the ship before we shipped out.”

“I have had it standing by during your decanting process. With your permission, I can use it now to remove the rest of the cryo systems or I can use the articulated arms from the pod.”

Fernando hesitated. “If you don’t mind, just use the pod arms. It’s embarrassing enough to have you fiddling around between my legs without you looking humanoid, and I wouldn’t want to spray you by accident.”

“That is your choice, and speaking of your potential spray, Dr. Kazama wanted me to present you with an offer.”

Fernando squinted in the darkness, still unable to see anything more than the set of robotic metallic arms moving on both sides. He lay still while the neural-netting was unwrapped and he felt his arms freed from his sides. He scratched idly against his side and felt coarse fur beneath his fingers.

He closed his eyes and spread out his legs when he was prompted, and stoically allowed the removal of the elimination flange and its internal components attached to him. He was impressed that even through that action, he was able to maintain control over the anal glands that everyone feared, and it was then he remembered what Arion had said.

“I can probably guess, but go ahead and describe the offer that Dr. Kazama wanted to give me.”

“This is solely voluntary, but if you so desire, Dr. Kazama can perform a small procedure which would render your scent glands inoperative. It is unlikely that in your hybrid form that you would actually need this defensive capability, and the procedure would prevent the likelihood of an accidental release, but if you believe you can control it on your own, the decision to keep them functional is totally up to you.”

Fernando smiled and sat up in the pod now that the flange had been removed. “You can tell Dr. Kazama that the procedure might actually be a good thing. Believe it or not, that was actually one of the first things I thought of when you told me I was a skunk.”

“I have informed Dr. Kazama of your decision. He will be here shortly.”

“Can you bring up the lights so that I can see myself now?” The room illumination increased slowly to give his eyes time to adjust, and the first thing he noticed was the black, pointed nose within his field of vision. He reached out to touch it, and then saw his black-furred hands and claw-tipped fingers. Then he looked down at his plantigrade feet and wriggled his toes. He was unaware that the others had all developed digitigrade feet, but since regular skunks were already plantigrade, they did not seem too out of place to him.

He crawled out of the cryo pod and then saw Arion’s figure standing quietly beside the bulkhead. He started, but not enough to set off his defenses. “Ah, there you are,” he said flippantly. Against one wall of the compartment in a line were four more cryo pods with their lids raised, though he could see that they were all empty. Only his stood in the middle of the room.

Arion’s waldo gestured toward the wall panel, where the full-length mirrors flipped around for him. When Fernando stepped up to examine his reflection, he tilted his head to study his new body and then turned several directions to see what he could see. Surprisingly, he found that his neck was more flexible and he could turn his head each direction farther than he had ever been able to as a human. He saw that his overall fur consisted of a black base with a pair of thick white stripes extending from a nebulous patch on the top of his head, down across his shoulder blades, along both sides of his spine and continuing along his flanks across his rump, where it then fanned out down the length of his voluminous tail. He had a white splotch across his chest and the upper part of his belly. There was even a slender white stripe from his forehead and down along the top of his nose.

He felt his skin heat up around his neck beneath his fur when he caught sight of an impressive set of genitals and he swiftly walked back to his clothing drawer. He had worn only a button-up shirt, a pair of walking shorts and some sandals when he had reported for cryo, but the only thing he pulled out were the shorts. He put his feet in through the wide leg holes and pulled it up until the back stopped just beneath the base of his tail. He had already known the tail would keep him from fastening them, but while holding it with one hand, he could keep his privates as private.

The door to the compartment opened and Fernando’s eyes nearly bugged out when he saw a bipedal river otter enter the room; Arion had not mentioned what the others had turned into. Since the figure wore a medical lab coat, he twitched an ear and said, “Are you, uh, Dr. Kazama?”

“I am Kazama. How are you feeling, Dr. Fernando?”

The skunk gestured toward the doctor’s coat with his free hand. “Can I get one of those?” he asked. “My shorts don’t work too well with this new tail and I need something to cover up with.”

Kazama smiled. “Yes, you can use this one for now, but Arion will scan your new form and can print up something appropriate for you to wear.”

“That would have been my next request,” Fernando said with a side glance toward the waldo.

The medical doctor unbuttoned the lab coat and pulled it off. Underneath, he wore no shirt, but just a pair of shorts with wide openings and a large dip in the back for his thick tail. There were also several useful pockets for anything the otter might need to carry.

“Okay, I admit those do look like they could be comfy.”

“They are, but we’ve had to try several different clothing designs to find something comfortable to wear over fur that’s easy to get on and off over our tails and altered limbs. It’s not the most fashionable of fashions, but this is the best we’ve come up with so far. If you can think of something better, just tell Arion and he will try to design your ideas. We also have shirts of a type, but the others have found them stifling over fur, so everyone feels more comfortable merely going without a top of any kind.”

“Uhm, topless? What about the women?”

Kazama nodded and handed medical smock over to his associate, who shuffled into it immediately. “Dr. Kate has enough fur on top that her chest is well covered and she prefers not to wear anything over her fur for more than modesty anyway. For the women who might not be as well-covered, Arion has a light top that can be worn across the chest. As we discovered, cloth on top of fur can feel a little smothering, but I don’t mind the lab coat. So now, Dr. Fernando. How are you feeling?”

“Sorry, you did ask me that already. Aside from being a little shaken over what’s happened, I think my body feels fine. No aches or pains, although the base of my tail is a little sore, but I assume that’s from laying on it in my pod.” He looked at the cryo bed where he had spent over seventy-five years as a modern Rip Van Winkle and then glanced around the compartment. He was lost in thought for several moments before he noted the physician’s patience and then remembered why he was there.

“Ah, right. How long will it take you to do this?”

“Once the area is sedated with only a local anesthetic, it should only take about twenty minutes,” Kazama answered. “There will be no stitches or staples, just a bit of bio-medical stitch-glue to seal up two incisions.”

“How long until I can sit down again?” the skunk asked with a lopsided smile.

“With luck, you may only need to sit on a donut cushion for a couple of hours, but during that time I will need to give you a full examination to make sure everything in your hybrid system is functioning as it should. I will have you up on your feet for most of it, so you may not even need the donut.”

“Wow, thanks – I think.”

Kazama chuckled. “After you’ve been inspected, I will take you up to meet the others. So far, we have a cougar, an African lion, a wolf, and one river otter - me.”

“And a striped skunk who’s about to be de-scented.”

“That is correct. I cannot do this procedure with you inside your cryo pod, so if you will follow me to Sick Bay, I can take care of you properly there.”

“Lead the way, Doc Otter.”

***

“That was probably the best chef’s salad I have had in a long time – relativistically speaking, of course!”

The newest decanted crew member of Arion-1 sat back in his chair and dabbed his muzzle with a napkin. He currently sat on a donut-shaped cushion on a chair in the galley that had been modified with a slot in the back for his tail to rest behind him. He only had to remember it was there when he got up or slid his chair back. Dressed in a pair of denim shorts that Arion had printed for him, he thought he looked like a good ol’ boy country skunk, but he felt truly relaxed as he looked around at his companions at the table.

“Arion’s gotten better with the menu since we awoke,” Andresen remarked.

“How are you feeling now?” Dr. Kate asked, resting her elbows on the edge of the table.

Fernando’s cheeks warmed up beneath his fur, though the others could not see his red cheeks. Even though the lioness was fur-covered, the skunk was male and the sight of the project director without a shirt or blouse fueled his imagination. He looked down at his plate and shrugged.

“As well as I can,” he admitted. “I feel okay.”

“Like the rest of us, he’s completely healthy,” Dr. Kazama reported. “Previous afflictions have all be reset, if you will. Signs of previous broken bones from the man’s tumultuous youth have been repaired, as if his bones were regrown in the process. I discovered the same with all of you.”

“Yeah, I haven’t felt the carpal tunnel syndrome in either of my wrists either,” said the skunk, rubbing his arms. “I worked through my college years as a part-time sheet metal mechanic for my father, and the rivet guns I used ruined my hands. This is the first real relief I’ve had in ages.”

“How’s the head?” Capt. Robeson asked, tapping his own furry brow. “I had nightmares for a week after waking up.”

Fernando studied him a moment with a professional eye. “We can talk about your nightmares, if you wish.”

“Later, in private.”

The skunk nodded. “I have only been up for several hours now, but so far, I have been handling all the little changes with me and you four okay. To be expected, I was shocked that such a thing was even possible, but at the moment I seem to be all right with it all. My conscious mind is cooperating for now, but it remains to be seen how my subconscious deals with it when I sleep.”

“We decided to pull you out two days early, so take your time,” Kate told him, “We will help as we can, but it will be your job to counsel each one we decant from now until everyone is out of cryo.”

Robeson tapped a claw on the table. “We all agreed that if you need someone to talk to between now and then, you can grab any of us. We four had one another to fall back on during the past couple of weeks, and I believe that each of us had to do just that at one time or another.” All of the counselor’s companions nodded agreement with the cougar’s supposition.

“Thank you,” he replied. “I’m sure that I will probably take up the offer with one of you. Even counselors need someone to talk to now and again, and this has to be the most unusual set of circumstance I have ever heard of.” He picked up and nibbled on a last bit of carrot from his plate before he added, “I could probably start with the rest of the crew tomorrow, but I think I’ll take that extra time to prepare myself before I counsel the rest of furmanity.”

“Furmanity?” Andresen repeated in amusement. “Kate came up with being furman and furmen for plural, and Ken uses Furs. We’ve all invented new nouns and pronouns for the lot of us!”

“That’s better than just calling us all a bunch of animals,” Kazama remarked. “It all works for me.”

“We cannot decant anyone else until we have reached Belle anyway,” Robeson told him. “We don’t have room for more than the handful of us—”

“Pawful of us,” Andresen corrected.

Robeson narrowed his golden eyes at him. “—handful of us at a time, so we’ll need to transfer small groups to the surface as we wake them. You can have your two days, Counselor.”

Fernando suddenly yawned, his pink tongue curling up toward the roof of his mouth. “I know that I have been sleeping for many years, but now that I have been up and about, poked and prodded, and had a good meal, I feel like I could take a long nap. I don’t ever remember seeing staterooms, so where have you all been sleeping?”

“In our pods,” Robeson answered. “Now that they have fulfilled their purpose and will never again be needed for cryo, we have been using them for glorified bunks to sleep in.”

“Yes, but we’ve discovered that only one person can fit in them at a time,” Kate added impishly. Everyone looked over at her, but she refused to meet anyone’s gaze. The project director’s personality had taken a lighter turn since her transformation.

Kazama cleared his throat. “Right, then. All of the medical lines, tubes, sensors and netting used for each of our bodies have been stored away and can likely be repurposed for other uses once we land on Belle.”

“If we’re going to be sleeping near one another, you all may need hearing protection with me,” Fernando confessed with a curious side-glance at the lioness. “I’ve been told that my snoring rattles the walls when I sleep.”

Andresen grinned. “You may be surprised to learn that your new body has different nasal passages than you used to have. You may not snore at all. Then again, if you do disturb me when I’m trying to sleep, all I have to do is close the lid to my pod. It’s well-ventilated, so I won’t suffocate, but it blocks out surrounding noises quite well.”

“The cushion is relatively comfortable,” Robeson added, “and we have pillows and blankets from supply. Arion still watches over us when we sleep, too.”

“Yeah, he’s a voyeur that way,” Andresen quipped.

“I see all, Dr. Fernando,” said the SI’s voice, “so be on your best behavior.”

The skunk looked at each of the other Furs in the room and then he burst out laughing.

Chapter Ten

The New World

“Braking accomplished and orbital insertion successful.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

“Considering that this arrow was shot out of its bow from Earth orbit, traveled across the vastness of interstellar space and landed in the center of the target nearly fifty-one light years down range, that was some accurate shooting!”

Dr. Kate and Capt. Robeson looked over at Andresen, both with amused expressions on their feline faces at his metaphors. The three Furs of the command team were free floating in the Bridge compartment of the vessel. There were no actual windows in the spherical room, but the planet below was reflected across multiple screens.

Since the ship had swung around Dimidium to use its gravity to slow their flight speeds passing through the new solar system, Arion-1 had been on final approach to Bellerophon from in-system with 51 Pegasi behind them for the past two weeks. Now that they were in a stable orbit, the interstellar vessel quickly passed across the day-night terminator into a hemisphere of night-time, and it was eerie to be looking down upon a world without lights of any kind across its surface. There were no cities, no metropolitan areas nor other signs of civilizations at all – not even a lonely bonfire, but lightning flashes in high-altitude clouds were visible at the far curve of the planet. The world’s two small moons were always together and hovered over the world in thin crescents.

Close to an hour later, the sunlight side of the globe returned and they could just begin to see surface details. The captain studied a data screen for a moment.

“Arion, please alert me when we have completed three orbits to ascertain stability and to compare current data with those from the BR549 survey. Then we can begin scanning the surface for potential landing sites.”

“Aye, Captain,” the SI responded.

As the terminator slid beneath them, it was amazing just how Earth-like this new world was, even if the continents and seas were in different configurations. The planet was a marbled blue globe of green and brown land masses with white puffs and swirls of clouds across the atmosphere.

According to the previous appraisal, there were six continents; two large ones connected by a narrow land bridge of mountains, three smaller land masses and one beneath the northern polar ice cap. Of the larger continents, one was relatively oblong near the equator with a jagged coast on the east end and a large crescent-shaped gulf on the west. At its southern end to the east, the land bridge stretched in a general southeasterly direction with ocean waters lapping at a high range of mountains on both sides. This band connected to an even larger continent located in the southern hemisphere that had no specific geometric shape; its coastlines meandered to all points on the compass.

One of the smaller continents located on the opposite side of the planet was so far south that it almost connected with the thick polar ice cap. The other two continents were located in the northern hemisphere and spaced so far apart that they were almost difficult to see together at the same time even from orbit. Scattered across the rest of the world’s oceans were numerous island chains, most of them in tropical regions only moderately removed from the equator.

Hours later, Arion was ready to make his report to the two leonine leaders still on the Bridge. “Three full orbits around Bellerophon have been completed, Captain Robeson. Onboard clocks and calendars have been recalibrated to reflect a planetary rotation of twenty-seven hours, three minutes, fifteen seconds with an eighteen degree axial tilt. All personnel tablets and techwatches are currently being adjusted to match.”

“We’ll also need to calculate time zones for this place,” Kate remarked absently, fully absorbed by the images of the new world on the screens.

“Agreed, but we can do that later,” said Robeson. “Okay, Arion, what have you found?”

“Scans indicate massive continental shelves submerged beneath the seas with the mountain tops poking through as numerous island chains. However, there are several areas where my scanners are unable to penetrate to the depths of the oceans from orbit. There are six primary continents – three major and three minor. Generic continental designations were recorded by BR549, but mission parameters allow for personnel to choose actual names for them as desired.”

One of the Bridge screens displayed an equatorial land mass; Latitude and Longitude gridlines were overlaid across the image, adjusted for the planet’s greater circumference. “Continent One is generally barren, consisting of rocky flatlands, low hills, weathered mesas, deep valleys and several meteoric impact craters for good measure.”

“Meteorite impacts?” Captain Robeson repeated with a concerned look at Dr. Kate.

“Yes sir, but comparisons to the BR549 survey shows them all, so none of these impacts were formed within the past one hundred thirty-two years. It is not unreasonable to assume that they originated from this system’s asteroid belt.”

“Of course. Is there any life on Continent One?”

“Vegetation only, so far as my initial scans from orbit can determine, and those areas are primarily along the northern and southern coasts. Geological patterns suggest very little rainfall across the majority of the continent. Only a closer study of the land mass would reveal other lifeforms; it is beyond my capabilities from this altitude.”

“Understood. What about that land bridge?”

“Twenty-three hundred miles in estimated length consisting of weathered peaks averaging 14,000-16,000 feet elevation. They are close-packed and it is unlikely there will be traversable valleys between them.”

“Mother Nature put up a fence to separate two disobedient continents,” Kate murmured.

“What about that southern land mass?” Another image appeared on the screen.

“Continent Two has an abundance of rainforests and areas of grasslands with multiple rivers. The areas not covered by these are mostly marshlands or rocky hills near some parts of the coasts.” The image magnified, closer in. “There are two inland seas located together near the southern coast, but are not connected to the ocean waters. I would suspect that these are probable fresh water lakes as both are surrounded on three sides by snow-capped mountains that likely feed into them.”

“Inland seas,” the cougar repeated. The two of them were just as large as the Great Lakes of Earth, but could only be compared to them if the ones back home were mostly surrounded by mountains.

“Continue.”

The screen was divided into quadrants with individual photos displayed in separate images. “Four meteoric impacts have been detected on this continent as well, all made after the BR549 survey.”

“They’re recent? That’s worrisome.”

“Two of them impacted separately within forested regions, one near the edge of a grassland, and one right on a coastal shore.”

“Hmm, okay. What about the smaller continents?”

“Continent Three is located in the northern hemisphere on the other side of Bellerophon, comparable in size to Australia and contains a mix of mountains, forests and grasslands.”

“Any animals there?”

“Unknown at this time.”

“What about meteorite impact sites.”

“None that I can detect on that land mass.”

Kate arched her back and felt a satisfying crack relieve some tension. “Good to know it hasn’t been a target.”

“This is true, Dr. Kate, but impact sites are always random. Just because there are none now does not protect against future events.”

“Nice, I’m feeling better about this world with every passing moment.”

Robeson smiled at her sarcasm, but Arion did not respond to it. “Okay, continue.”

The next image of land appeared on the screen as a giant crescent claw with multiple talons. “Continent Four is also in the northern hemisphere. Although it is in a temperate zone and there are freshwater lakes, there appears to be little vegetation.”

“Any theories about that?”

“There are active geothermal regions on this continent, but not enough to account for the low vegetation of the entire land mass, although the planet’s largest meteorite impact crater is located just off-center in the middle of its mainland. Once the colony site is selected and work begins on the town, I can devote some of my processing time to send probes to different areas on the planet to investigate them in greater detail. If a human presence is required for closer inspection, the shuttle planes and shuttle trucks can be utilized for that purpose when they are not otherwise in use.”

“True, that. Continue.”

“Continent Five is near the south polar ice cap, but does not actually connect with it.”

Kate looked at the picture that came up. “Is there a continent beneath the polar ice?”

“Negative, it is one ice mass and there is no land shelf beneath it. It is floating on the water – comparable to the north polar ice on Earth, although greater in area. This polar site is one of the regions where my sensors are unable to penetrate the depths of the sea. It is quite deep beneath that ice on all sides. The continental shelf beneath Continent Five drops off sharply just south of its coast. Despite its proximity to the pole, the northern sections are flourishing in vegetation among rocky hills. There are no impact sites on Five.”

“And this brings us to the final continent,” Robeson remarked.

“Continent Six sits at the north polar cap and is entirely covered in glacial snow and ice. The land mass is roughly pentagonal in shape and is surrounded by rough seas. No other distinguishing features from initial scans.”

Arion activated all ten of the Bridge screens. Close up views of each continent were on six of them, with four island chains filling the others. “There are over seven thousand individual islands of various sizes worldwide. Environmental conditions are as varied as the mainland continents.”

Captain Robeson turned to Dr. Kate and swept a furred hand to gesture at the monitors. “As the mission project director, it will be your decision to choose our home site. Take your pick.”

Kate frowned and swished her tail. “This decision will affect all of humanity on Belle, so I don’t want to make it lightly. Arion, I will need your help researching all of the variables necessary to make a choice. This may take a while.”

“I am at your disposal, Dr. Kate.”

“While you two are driving this task,” Robeson said, pushing off from the bulkhead to float toward the door, “I am going to take a shower.”

“You mean you aren’t going to lick yourself clean like a cat?” Kate asked with sudden impish glee.

The captain narrowed his eyes at her. “That is not a habit I plan to start today,” he growled in amusement. Before she could add anything, he slipped through the door and was gone. The lioness looked over at the SI’s image on a screen with a smile and nodded toward him.

“Alright, let’s get started.”

***

“Okay, we have it narrowed down to three sites,” Kate told her companions several hours later. All five of the Furs were gathered in the galley near a wall screen where they had been taking their meals, although at the moment they only had a few appropriate snacks and drinks that the SI had provided for their meeting.

With everyone focused on the screen, one of the land masses was displayed for them. “These sites are in the southern hemisphere on what the BR549 survey designated as Continent Two. For those of us who grew up in the northern hemisphere of Earth, directions will seem reversed since water flows primarily south to north toward the equator instead of the other way around. If we use a standard hand-held compass, the red end will still point toward the north magnetic pole, so we will always need to remember that the opposite end of the needle will point toward our nearest magnetic pole.”

Kate paused to lap at a wide-mouth cup of coffee. “For various reasons, I have ruled out the other continents for our initial colonization, although Continent Three may be ideal for later settlement when our population increases over time.”

A blinking red dot appeared in one place, a blue dot in another, with a yellow dot marking the third. The project director leveled a claw toward the red dot. “Site One could be considered to be in this continent’s Great Plains with several thousand square miles of prairie grasslands. There are numerous freshwater lakes fed from rivers with their headwaters originating at a pair of inland seas to the south.”

“What is that blemish on the east side of the plains?” Dr. Kazama asked. “It almost looks like a huge meteorite crater.”

“That is exactly what it is,” Kate replied. “Arion conjectures that it hit sometime within the past sixty years. If you look closer, you may notice that the surrounding area of nearly a hundred miles out looks tarnished, as if the grasslands were fire-bombed and the region has had a tough time recuperating in the years since. It’s probable that the meteorite came in super-hot and contained some elements in its core that damaged the local ecosystem. It’s unknown if that contagion is still spreading or is now fading, but the grasslands are so large that the western edge of the Great Plains several hundred miles away appears to be relatively untouched. Site One could be set up in the region to the west away from the impact site, although there are three other such craters across the continent, though not as large.”

“What about Site Two?” Fernando asked. “Is it any better?”

Arion adjusted the screen and the land filled up the view with endless stretches of dark green. “Outside of the Great Plains, a massive rainforest about fills in the rest of the continent,” Kate explained. Our first thought was that we would need to clear-cut the area we would need for our town within the rainforest.”

“That would be a massive undertaking,” Andresen growled, “and it might be months before we had enough space cleared out just to move all of our personnel, supplies and equipment to the surface! We can’t decant everyone and then keep them up here on the ship while only a few work on that project.”

“All correct,” Kate replied with a nod, “but nature itself has provided an alternative to clear cutting.”

“How so?”

“Two of the other meteorites impacted in the rainforest, each about eight hundred miles from one another.” The screen split to display a pair of images that pockmarked the forest where meteorites had struck. The blue site dot was in the center of one and the yellow dot marked the other. “These are similar craters approximately 25-30 miles across, where each caused a great upheaval of land that pushed the ridge rock around them so high that some are now snow-capped. The forest was blasted outward from shock waves beyond each crater in all directions for many miles.”

“Why would these be considered for colony sites?” Kazama asked, looking back at the lioness.

Kate smiled at him. “Instead of clear cutting the rainforest, the meteorites have done this for us. I had Arion launch a reconnaissance rover down to each of the craters on this continent. As suspected, the soil samples analyzed from Site One is inert and dead from whatever contaminated it by the meteorite. We would have to seed the soil from other locations to make it viable. However, inside the craters of Sites Two and Three, the soil is as fertile as any I have ever seen, although I’m neither botanist or microbiologist. It is my opinion that we could probably set up our colony site and subsequent town within either of these craters. There is plenty of room to expand and the potential exists to grow our own crops even if local flora is not edible – and that’s something else we will look into as well.”

Robeson studied the images carefully. “Of these two sites, is either one better than the other?”

“Yes, but only marginally. Due to the regional rainfall that makes a rainforest flourish, the floor of each crater is carpeted in some type of uniform ground cover, and each crater also has a large freshwater lake near its center that would serve to sustain us. Site Two also has several small rivers running from the snow-capped ridge rock down the slopes into the crater to provide extra freshwater into its lake. Site Three has but one of these runoff rivers, although local rainfall seems to have kept its lake well supplied. Both sites are practically ideal for colonization, and if we have need of natural building materials, we can reap them from the forested areas laid over outside the craters.”

“Arion, is there any residual radiation from the meteorites that made the craters?” Robeson asked.

“No, sir, Captain Robeson. Radiation levels are practically null.”

“These are some amazing discoveries,” Fernando mused, clearly impressed. “Is there anything else we should know about these sites?”

Kate grinned widely and tapped a clawtip on the table. “Yes, I’m glad you asked! Arion’s reconnaissance rovers also released drones to look over the area while the ground investigation was underway. The drones sent back these images from Site Three!”

The display screen changed and each of the furmen gasped collectively. Crawling across the green and yellow leaves of the ground cover were twenty or more creatures of varying sizes that somewhat resembled large starfish with a rounded lobe on top. These did not appear to be aquatic creatures, however, but looked relatively mammalian. Each body was covered in a short nap of fur in mottled colors of black, gray, white and tan and all five limbs appeared to be legs of some kind, each tipped with a hard thorny cap that could possibly be used for digging. A pair of coal-black, stereoscopic eyes peered out high on the center of the lobe, but its mouth could be seen beneath the legs, silently ingesting clumps of soft ground cover. They did not appear to be harmful, but there was only so much they could tell from the images of a small flying drone.

“How big are these critters?” Andresen asked. “I can’t tell the scale from these pictures.”

“The average size can be comparable to a large family dog,” Arion’s voice reported.

“Oh my…” Robeson muttered when he noticed a pair of the starfish… star-things?… in the background. One had mounted itself behind another, undulated against it for a moment, and then slid back to the ground.

“Mating in motion seems to be universal across the stars,” Andresen remarked with a chuckle.

Then a different individual seemed to rise up on the tips of its legs and they could see the lower mouth making some sound-related motions, perhaps braying or barking, although the image was silent since the drones were not equipped with microphones. Each of the animals turned to look up at the camera, all having noticed the flying intruder. They appeared to be in a state of alarm, but none of them did anything more than stare at the drone that looked back at them. After a moment, the flying observer retreated to a safer distance in case the things became too agitated with its proximity. Watching from a higher altitude, the star-things relaxed and soon returned to grazing.

“Beyond identifying micro-organisms in the soil, this is the first sign of animal life we have seen,” Kate remarked cheerfully.

“How about we call them Belle Stars?” Fernando suggested.

Andresen looked puzzled. “Why would you name them after an outlaw of the Old West?”

The skunk chuckled. “Actually, I had forgotten about her. I was referring to their star-shapes belonging to the planet we call Belle.”

The group was silent for a moment until Robeson shrugged his shoulders. “That sounds reasonable to me, but the usual practice is for the discoverer to have naming rights.” He looked over at the lioness. “What do you want call them?”

Kate blinked and then twitched an ear. “Arion made the discovery, not I.”

“I waive all naming rights for any discoveries made on Bellerophon,” announced the synthetic voice. “I defer to Dr. Kate for this one.”

The group all looked amused. They all knew that Arion would likely discover more about this new world than anyone else in the crew, but he seemed to have no issue with his human – or furman – companions taking the glory.

The lioness stretched out her forearms across the table, but had to fight the urge to dig her claws into it. “Since I have nothing better to suggest, I will go with Antony’s recommendation. We’ll call them Belle Stars.”

“Noted for the records,” Arion reported.

The scene on the wall screen changed back to a satellite image of Continent Two with its three dots still blinking in place. The group of furman colonists fell silent for several long moments, but Dr. Kazama pointed up at the picture. “Arion,” he said, “please highlight each of the meteor impact sites, not just the site markers.” A green circle appeared around each crater and the otter nodded. “I just noticed – take a look at the pattern.”

“They’re all in a line,” Andresen remarked. “I’m guessing they all fell about the same time.”

“They were either lined up as the gravity well caught several strays and pulled them in,” Kazama conjectured, “ or it was one meteorite that broke up when it entered the atmosphere.”

“If they were all fragments of the same rock,” Kate replied, “wouldn’t all of the sites have been contaminated like Site One? So far, that’s the only one with a contagion on its local environment. The other sites are healthy and thriving.”

“Even the fourth one that hit right on the edge of the coast hasn’t killed off everything in its vicinity,” Robeson added.

“Maybe the contagion wasn’t on the meteorite,” Andresen conjectured. Maybe it was something already underground and the impact released it to the surface.”

“That’s a possible scenario,” Kate murmured.

Kazama sat back in his seat, digging at a morsel of food between his teeth with a claw tip. “It just seems too much of a coincidence that the rocks all fell like points on a line diagram if they had come in at different times.”

“If this is a concern,” Arion said from the screen, “I can set the rovers still at each site to do an analysis on the apparent age of each impact.”

Kazama shook his head. “No, it’s not a concern – just a curiosity. We probably shouldn’t use your resources for something that trivial. If you wish to recall your rovers, it’s something we can look into months or even years down the road, For now, we’ll need to focus on our mission to build the town. Arion-2 may not get here for a few years, but it will probably take us that long to set up everything we have planned.”

“As you wish.”

“Do we need those rovers elsewhere?” Fernando asked. “If not, we can just leave them there and Arion can use them to study the area later without having to send them back.”

“I don’t see a need to redeploy them to another site unless something else comes to our attention,” the lioness answered. “Arion, unless they are needed elsewhere, can you use them as a remote monitoring station right where they are now?”

“Affirmative, Dr. Kate.”

“Okay, that’s settled.”

Captain Robeson looked over at the director. “So, have you made the choice for us?”

The lioness straightened up in her chair and folded her hands over one another on top of the table. “It is my recommendation that we build our initial colony location at Site Two,” she said after taking a quick look back up at the screen. “However, I would like to put it to a vote between the five of us if someone might prefer a different location. There are one hundred… uh, ninety-eight of us – who will be totally alone on this world for the next five years, but the others are all still asleep for now. By the time they all awaken, we should have our plans ready to put into motion. I don’t mind making the choice, but I want each of you to have a say in it. So, does anyone wish to suggest one of the other sites, or even another continent? All views can be discussed, pro and con.”

No one brought up any further debate, so one by one, each of the Furs held up fingers to indicate their choice. It was unanimous without debate or further discussion. Their colony would be set up on Continent Two, Site Two.

Chapter Eleven

Triple Crown Landing

Joe Kittinger’s feline tail twitched in agitation, all that could be seen of him from the maintenance panel he had crawled into. The shuttle pilots had all been decanted hours ago, having had their mixed reactions to waking up transformed into anthropomorphic hybrids and subsequent sessions with Dr. Fernando. Once they had been poked, prodded, scanned, counseled, clothed, fingerprinted and fed, they had been released into the wilds of the ship’s corridors with a good bill of health.

Dr. Kate had encouraged them all to lean upon one another as close associates, but then stressed the importance of their skills in preparation to fulfill their mission to Bellerophon. As soon as they were ready, they were to start preparing the shuttles for work.

Mounted externally just above Arion-1’s engine pods were the Percheron-class personnel shuttle planes, Secretariat and Omaha, and mounted below were the Clydesdale-class cargo shuttle trucks, Sir Barton and War Admiral, all named after Triple-Crown horse race winners. Personnel entrance to these four winged shuttles from the interstellar ship were through airlock hatches in each of their bellies, although the trucks could also be accessed through external cargo doors along the port side of each.

“Hey, Morris, are you in there?” called a voice from the Secretariat’s internal hatch.

“I told you to stop calling me that – Cheeto!” Kittinger backed out of the access panel and the orange domestic cat looked crossly at the cheetah who grinned back at him from the hatch. Despite his good health, Joe Kittinger’s eyes had heterochromia, which made his left eye yellow and his right eye green; this did not affect his keen eyesight, but it made his expression even more dour when he narrowed them in agitation as they were now.

Henry Clifton grinned at the new nickname that his partner had given him in retaliation for the moniker he had put upon the orange striped feline, but he was not about to give Kittinger the satisfaction of knowing that he did not care much for it either. The two pilots had worked together for years and their verbal sparring was near constant; that each were now hybrid feline types only served to give them more to needle one another with.

“What do you want?” Kittinger asked, wiping his paws on a grease rag he pulled from a pocket of his shorts.

“Have you tried the touch screen controls of your plane yet?”

Kittinger made a face. “Yeah, tried, but I haven’t gotten the hang of operating them with these fingers. My claws retract, but the thicker finger pads don’t make good contact unless I press harder on the screen.”

“I’ve run into the same problem,” Clifton remarked, “but my claws are only semi-retractable, so I have nails clacking the screen while trying to press firmly. My fingers are also a little shorter than they used to be, but my legs are longer due to my digit-grade ankles. Operating the foot controls will be tricky, especially if we hit any severe weather.”

“I had to adjust my seat further back because of that, but it also puts me farther from the control panel. I also keep getting a pinch in my tail from the seat back; our planes weren’t designed to be flown by animals!”

“Touch screens weren’t designed for us either. I miss my human hands.” The cheetah rubbed at the black cry-lines in his facial fur as if he could see smudges of soot at the edge of his vision.

“Arion,” the orange cat said aloud, turning to replace the access panel over the duct he had just been inside.

“Yes, Mr. Kittinger?”

“Can you reprogram all of our control screens to accept a lighter touch with our new finger pads?”

“I can and it is a good idea, but it will take approximately one and a half hours to reprogram every touch screen control throughout Arion-1, your shuttles and all personnel tablets. It appears this will be a recurring issue for more than just yourselves.”

“How long will it take to reprogram just the shuttles for now?” the cheetah asked. “These vehicles are our priority right now and we can’t afford a mis-touch on the screens while in flight.”

“I am now writing the new code. It will take approximately seventeen minutes to push down new commands to all four shuttles, Mr. Clifton.”

“Please do.”

“I have informed the Captain of your request, but I do not see a problem.”

“He’s probably having the same issues using touch screens.”

“Captain Robeson has approved your request. Implementing firmware update. You may experience control fluctuations until it has been completed.”

Clifton nodded in satisfaction toward Kittinger. “I’ll let the fluff-bunnies know what he’s doing so they will understand if something drops out on them.”

“Go ahead. I still have mechanical systems to check out that will require hands-on inspection without the need of touch screens. Arion may have maintained the bigger ship during our sleepy time, but Secretariat has been sitting idle for over seventy-five years. I want to make sure nothing developed fluid or pressure leaks during that time.”

The Omaha pilot waved and pulled himself through the zero-gee connecting hatchway, his spotted tail trailing along in the air behind him. He turned at the connecting corridor, and using wall-mounted hand rails, the cheetah followed the curved passageway until he came to a printed sign beside another airlock hatch denoting Shuttle Truck 1.

Pulling himself into it, Henry Clifton approached the open portal of War Admiral. “Sean?” he called out, looking up toward the cockpit.

“I’m back here in the cargo bay,” responded a distant voice.

When Clifton passed through another internal pressure door, he emerged into a spacious compartment, although it was hardly empty. Several cargo shipping containers were lined up side by side, bow to stern. These held the first batch of equipment to be off-loaded down to the surface. Each of the large containers on this load held modular perimeter fencing that would cordon off a six hundred forty acre site area as protection against local indigenous creatures that might be attracted to the commotion and work initiated by the intrusion of humanity. This would be erected before anything else was built on-site.

Floating beside a container tie-down was the silhouette of a creature that made Clifton momentarily pause, stirring his predatory instincts. Although of different breeds, both Sean and Dana Barringer had been transformed into rabbit hybrids. The male half of the married couple was an American Fuzzy Lop, and the tan and white buck seemed almost comical dressed in a pair of Arion’s minimalist shorts.

“Hey, Cliff,” Sean called out when he saw the feline pilot cross in front of an area work light. “What do you think about this new life of ours?”

The cheetah suppressed his instincts and smiled at the rabbit. “I haven’t gotten used to it yet,” he confessed, resisting the urge to lick his lips. “There are times when my animal wants to take control.”

“I know exactly what you mean, especially when I look at Dana in the bib overalls she had Arion print out for her.” Sean grinned widely and waggled his eyebrows. “We’ve never really talked about having children before, but now the prospect seems natural.”

“Are we going to be overrun by baby bunnies?”

Sean laughed. “Not yet, but maybe once we’re settled in dirtside.”

“Listen, I wanted to alert you to some software changes Arion’s making to the shuttle controls. The touch screens aren’t very responsive to our new finger pads, so he’s reworking some of the code to make them more sensitive. It won’t take long, but he said some of the controls might fluctuate until they’ve been pushed down and installed.”

The rabbit nodded as he shook one of the equipment lockdown arms on a container to make sure it was firmly in place. “I’m glad to hear it,” he murmured. “I can barely use my tablet right now.”

“He’s going to update those too, along with all touch screens on board, but he said it would take time to get them all. The shuttles are first, though, since they’re the mission priority.”

“Great, thanks for letting me know. I’ll pass the word along to Dana. Captain Robeson wants us airborne by 1600, especially you or Joe.”

Clifton looked surprised. “Why the rush?”

“He wants Dr. Kate to make the historic first step on the new world and get the preliminaries out of the way so we can start decanting the rest of the crew and get them down to the surface. There’s not enough room on Arion-1 for everyone to loiter, so we’re to start offloading personnel and equipment as soon as we can get them out of the starting gate.”

“In that case, I’d better get back to Omaha and finish prepping my plane for passengers.”

“See you on the ground.”

***

Joe Kittinger handled the controls of Secretariat with skillful precision despite the reconfiguration of his new limbs and digits. Arion’s adjustments to the touch controls had improved the cat’s mood, and taking the shuttle plane out away from the interstellar ship for a practice run had given him the confidence he needed to pilot the small vessel. In personal waking time, it had only been a week since he had last piloted the plane when it had been delivered to the El-Five station, but this was his first experience since transformation.

After re-docking at the shuttle’s berth, all Furs but the rabbits boarded the plane. Designed for no more than one pilot and twelve passengers, there were still seats left empty with only six personnel occupying them. Everyone belted into acceleration couch seats, and once the orange feline had sealed the floor hatch, he double-checked their harnesses and then floated into the cockpit without a word.

He picked up a modified headset clipped beneath the control panel and slipped a thin band around the back of his head. The earpiece had been relocated to a thin arm so that it could be set up inside his ear, now positioned higher on his head than where it had been for a human pilot. He adjusted the boom microphone at his lips and then began his pre-flight checklist.

After several moments, he tapped a control with a finger pad and spoke. “Arion-1, this is Secretariat. On board personnel for transport to the surface in alphabet-soup order are Andresen, Clifton, Fernando, Kazama, Robeson and Ruston. We are ready for departure.”

“You are monitored for release, Secretariat,” the SI responded. “Sir Barton and War Admiral will follow you down in ten and twenty minute departures respectively.”

“Aye to that. Releasing docking clamps.”

Now that the landing site had been chosen, Arion-1 was parked in geosynchronous orbit at an altitude of two hundred seventy miles above the crater. Using small attitude jets, Kittinger maneuvered the shuttle plane away from the bulk of the larger ship and then gently fell behind its aft end. Painted bright blue so that the plane could be seen and recognized from a distance, Secretariat turned slowly to readjust its attitude with the sunlight momentarily reflecting its colored surface across the other shuttles.

Positioned on the opposite lower side of the vessel from Secretariat, Dana Barringer awaited her turn in Sir Barton to detach and follow it down; her husband Sean gave a farewell salute to the departing plane through the cockpit window of War Admiral.

Once sufficient space had been put between the plane and her mother ship, Kittinger lowered her tail toward the marbled world below at a gentle angle of descent and dropped their orbital speed.

“Just sit back and relax, folks,” Kittinger’s voice came over the cabin intercom. “Flight time to our landing site will be approximately two hours, ten minutes.”

“Can’t we go faster?” Dr. Fernando asked.

Engineer Andresen laughed aloud, but it was pilot Henry Clifton who answered the skunk’s question. “Yes, we can go a lot faster, but we’d end up making another nice crater in the rainforest. For me, I would rather we took our time so we can make a good landing that we can launch away from again.”

Fernando swallowed and looked at the cheetah. “I see your point,” he said. “Slower is safer.”

Captain Robeson adjusted his tail in the seat as much as he could to make it as comfortable as possible, and then rested his hands on his belly. “Like any long flight, it’s best to just relax and enjoy the ride.”

Kate held up her tablet. “I always bring along something to read,” she stated.

“I didn’t think of that,” muttered the skunk, at a loss of what to do with his time. His seat was near the starboard side of the plane, so he rested his chin on his fist and peered out a window at the clouds far below. The movement was imperceptible, but he could see that they were getting closer ever so slowly.

***

The atmosphere of the planet was thickening the farther they dropped, and although the weather over their intended site appeared to be calm, the shuttle plane buffeted through tropical thermal waves and wind currents rising up from the surface. Turbulence shook the passenger compartment enough that Dr. Kazama chirped in sudden pain when his nimble little teeth bit his tongue. Following that, he kept his dental work firmly clamped shut.

Much of the ride down from the edge of space resembled a free-falling express elevator with friction causing their windows to glow vibrant orange, but once they had reached the intended altitude, the flight smoothed out, the view cleared and the plane caught the wind in its wings to slice through the air at a greatly reduced speed.

Kittinger piloted the small craft in a gentle arc across the alien sky, reporting quietly through his microphone to the SI monitoring their progress, and as they dropped further in altitude, he made banking s-curves in the sky to decrease their airspeed further.

Several of his furmen passengers had their noses up to the windows when a break in the seemingly never-ending forest below revealed a light-colored circle. As the pilot continued to make maneuvers to slow their decent, that circle increased in size.

Aside from the craters of Earth’s moon, Will Andresen had never seen an impact crater beyond pictures he had seen of the small one near Winslow, Arizona. That one was just shy of being a mile across, yet Arion had said that this scar on the surface of Bellerophon measured close to twenty-five miles across with ridge rock so high that that some of its peaks were snow-covered even now in the relative spring-like weather conditions. The engineer felt amazed at the sight below them.

Eventually, Secretariat had thrown off enough post-orbital velocity that Kittinger started coming in directly toward the crater. The passengers could no longer see the target through the windows with it ahead of them, but the skunk was suddenly concerned.

“We’re in a plane and coming in for a landing,” he exclaimed. “Has Arion already built us a runway?”

“Nope,” Clifton answered. “Our shuttles are all equipped with VTOL, so we can drop straight down without needing a runway.”

Fernando stared at the feline pilot. “VTOL?”

“Vertical Take Off and Landing. Some planes have used the technology for many decades. It’s more efficient and requires less fuel to use a runway, but until we can make one of our own, the VTOL is our best way to get on and off the planet.”

“Ah… okay.”

“Heads up, folks,” Kittinger said over the intercom. “We’re coming in over the crater lake and we’ll be on the ground in about three minutes. Deploying landing gear now.”

Noses went back to the windows and they could all see water passing below them. They had dropped farther than they had anticipated just in the past few minutes and they were now below the tops of the ridge rock. Then suddenly, the water gave away to a pale green and yellow ground cover and even that passed by much slower.

VTOL rocket engines roared loudly and drowned out all other sounds as the space plane slowed to hover, and then it dropped to the ground with the barest of bumps.

The din of the engines died suddenly and then it became almost too quiet while all ears compensated for the lack of noise.

“Welcome to Bellerophon, lady and gents. For better or worse, we’re home.”

Dr. Kate remained in her seat at the announcement, but the others released their harnesses to get up and mill around the passenger compartment. Clifton went straight to the compact restroom at the rear of the plane and others stretched their limbs under the natural gravity of the new world. They were slightly heavier here than on Earth, but the difference was barely noticeable and they would all acclimate in time.

The orange domestic cat opened the cockpit door and looked out at his companions, simply leaning on the door frame and letting his tail swish lazily behind him.

“There will be a twenty minute delay before we can open the hatch,” he informed the small group. “The VTOL rockets superheated the ground beneath us, so we’ll need to let that dissipate before we step out.”

“Did it set the ground cover on fire?” Dr. Kazama wanted to know.

“No, whatever it is out there seems to be fire resistant. Once the air cools, I’ll open the environmental package to analyze the atmosphere before we actually breathe the stuff.”

“The BR549 report stated that it was breathable,” Fernando said, retaking his seat to look out the window.

“Yes, and that was over a hundred years ago by now,” Robeson remarked. “We’ve got to be able to breathe it since we can’t go back to Earth, but first we want to make sure that nothing has changed and that we can.”

“Rock and a hard place,” Andresen grumbled, crossing his lupine arms.

“As I said, for better or worse…”

***

The time passed excruciatingly slow for the ground to cool, and then even more time for the environmental analysis. Joe and Henry compared changing information on their personal tablets, and finally Kittinger cleared his throat for attention.

“Okay folks, Arion has a report for us.” All eyes went to their pilot as the SI’s voice emanated from his tablet.

“Local conditions are as follows. Surface air composition: 77% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, .93% argon, 1% water vapor and 1.07% of miscellaneous trace gases. From all indications, it should be fully breathable for humankind.”

“Or furmankind,” Andresen added.

“The current temperature is 71°F. Pressure 30.15 inches. Dew point 37°F. Humidity 29%. Wind is 3 mph and you have mostly sunny skies.”

“The chemicals are right for breathing, but what about other things in the air?” Fernando asked.

Dr. Kazama looked at the skunk. “We were all inoculated with the vaccines developed from samples brought back by BR549, but there’s no way to know what kind of other bacteria, viruses or potential pathogens it missed that we might face. Facing such barriers will become a common way of life for us here on Belle from now on.”

“I am satisfied with the report, but does anyone else have any concerns before we open the hatch?” Kate looked around from person to person, but no one else spoke up. Even the counselor seemed ready to get outdoors despite his voiced concern.

When the lioness received no opposition, she turned to the pilot. “If you please, Mr. Kittinger. Open our portal to another world.” The orange cat grinned back at her metaphor.

“Certainly, madam.”

A moment later, new air and new scents flowed into the cabin through the side hatch. Kittinger tapped a touch plate and a ramp extended out from the belly of his plane to the ground below, and then he stepped aside to allow her first egress.

Everyone else crowded around the door to watch as she padded down to the end of the ramp. There she stopped and crouched down to look at the vegetation growing evenly across the entire floor of the crater. It was completely alien to anything on Earth, but her first impression was of Asian kudzu by the way it was spread across the ground. This native ivy also resembled ferns, but instead of reaching up to the sky, these grew horizontally across the crater floor.

The circle-shaped leaves were dark green with extremely tiny yellow flowers growing in the center of each leaf, and although they did not resemble anything that had ever been seen upon the Earth, they were recognizable as growing plant life. She reached out tentatively and stroked the leafy material. It was slightly coarse to the touch, but simultaneously soft enough it would not cause any abrasions walking on them. She picked one and it snapped off its stem only after a hard pull. Tentatively, she raised it to her nose and took a shallow sniff. She blinked rapidly for a moment, but the faint aroma neither tickled or abused her senses.

Swishing her tail behind her, Kate dropped the leaf, stood back up and then stepped out off of the ramp. Her weight pressed her foot down onto the ground cover, but only by inches. She had been quietly concerned that the actual crater floor might have been a foot or more beneath the covering plants, presenting the danger of twisting an ankle when she fell, but she also remembered the ramp she had stood on had not compressed it much.

When she took several steps out away from the walkway, she idly remembered that she was barefoot, having had no shoes for her newly shaped feet; she could only hope there was nothing analogous to briars or stickers along the ground.

Dr. Kate looked out across the terrain, but from ground level, she could not tell that she was actually inside a crater. From her point of view, it just appeared as if she were fully surrounded by a range of mountains at her immediate horizon in all directions.

She took a good lungful of air and her body processed it without a cough, sneeze or sniffle. She smiled and turned back to look up at the others waiting in anticipation, almost all of them now out along the ramp. The lioness gave them a feline thumbs-up and her associates returned with an abbreviated smattering of applause.

“My friends,” she said, struggling to say something profound at this historic event, “Mankind is no longer bound to one planet amongst the thousands and more out among the stars. We have never seen any indication that there are other intelligences like our own, and even if we are alone out here, we have now spread across the sky to live on two worlds. Bellerophon is our new home, and whether or not you believe in the guidance of God or some other force, we have made it here safely. Earth will live on in our memories, but to any children we may have, that other place will become nothing more than the stories of legend. Welcome to Belle, and as Mr. Kittinger said it earlier, Welcome Home.”

“Amen,” Robeson said beneath his breath.

Everyone paused for just a moment after Kate’s words, and then they all walked down the ramp to set their own feet upon the new world. They could never go back, but that had never been their intention, and even if their forms had been altered from the human standard, they were alive and in full control of their mental faculties. Now that they had arrived, they had a mission to fulfill.

Kittinger promptly turned back to the space plane to inspect the heat-resistant tiles to make sure nothing had developed a problem during their descent from orbit.

A familiar hum approached from the direction of the lake, and the rest of the party turned in unison when Arion’s lander rover came to rest a few feet from the ramp. The six-wheeled vehicle was half the size of a family car, although it contained no seats, with scientific equipment packages mounted on all sides. From a control module on its front, Arion looked out at them through stereoscopic lenses mounted on a boom extension.

“I have finished an initial analysis of the crater lake,” said the SI’s familiar voice, “and the water should be safe for human consumption. There does not seem to be any marine life in the water beyond tiny creatures analogous to krill and some various types of water vegetation, but no harmful microbiology that I could detect.”

Andresen got down and stretched out on all fours, the lupine engineer looking all the world like a large dog that had just woken from a nap. “If we want to do any fishing,” he said, “we’ll have to stock it with our own fish.”

Leading the small group toward the lake with her hands upon her hips, Kate said. “We have plenty of fish embryos for that very reason. We just didn’t want to stock them until we knew how much they would have to compete for food and air by native life.”

“That can still be the case,” Arion remarked, his rover rolling along beside them. “The indigenous life conditions could change for nocturnal situations, so I will continue to monitor the lake throughout the night.”

“I wonder if our fish will see the native krill as a food source,” Andresen mused when something flitted past his nose. “They’ll need to eat something.”

“There are insects flitting about,” Kate remarked, “or at least something that might be insects.”

“They are analogous to insects,” Arion confirmed. “I have examined forty-two distinctly separate species so far.”

“Any of them venomous?” Andresen asked with a frown.

“Unknown at this time. All of my observations have been visual-only.”

Robeson approached the water and knelt beside it. The lake was still with barely any ripples from the light breeze that blew across the crater valley. “This may be safe to drink,” the feline captain remarked, “but it’s not running water. We can use it to irrigate our crops and swim in it on hot days, but personally I wouldn’t drink from it. It would be my suggestion to locate our town near one of the flowing rivers that feed into it, either from mountain springs or snow runoff. Running water has always been cleaner than anything stagnant in a lake, and I’m betting that applies to this world too.”

“That’s a very good point,” Andresen said. He looked around at the others and then settled his gaze upon Kate. “I would go with his recommendation.”

The lioness nodded. “I would have to agree with that assessment. The perimeter fence will go up first and we’ll include a river for our water supply, and then we can survey out the exact place inside where we can start building.”

“What about the Belle Stars?” Fernando asked, swishing his large fluffy tail. “Can we get the fence up before any of those come calling?”

“Those were only seen at Site One,” Clifton reminded him.

“I have identified none of those creatures here in the Site Two crater. However,” Arion paused for dramatic effect, “there have been several varieties of flying creatures analogous to birds that gathered at the lake earlier, some feeding on the insects, but your landing frightened them away.”

“I’m glad to know about the birds!” Kazama reacted with enthusiasm. “Birding is one of my hobbies and I hope they return.”

“Any idea what this is?” Andresen asked.

At the shore, the ground cover gave away to a mix of wet sand and gravel rock. Floating near the edge of the still water were several objects that looked like pale green grapefruit and of a similar size. The red wolf reached out and managed to grab one without getting his feet wet. It came up out of the water with a single root strand trailing beneath it.

Kittinger rejoined the group at the water. “You might want to leave that alone,” he cautioned.

Ignoring the orange cat, the wolf said, “It’s surprisingly light, and it’s soft and pliable. It feels almost like…” Andresen’s voice trailed off and a smile crept across his lips as he hefted it up.

“What does it feel like?” Robeson prompted.

The wolf embellished groping the balloon-like plant and grinned. “It feels like my late wife’s bosom!”

Kate snorted aloud and everyone else either sputtered or stared at him incredulously. Before the wolf could make another joke, his expression changed to one of surprise. His free hand went to the back of his head and then he dropped the soft globe back into the water.

“What happened?” Clifton asked.

Andresen glanced back down at the object he had dropped before he looked at the others. “I felt a… tingling at the base of my skull.”

Dr. Kazama approached him. “Did it sting your hand?” he asked. “It could be something akin to a jellyfish. It had a root or spine beneath it.”

Andresen shook his head. “No, I never even touched that part of it, only its body. All jokes aside, it felt just as I described it, but after a moment, I felt that tingling.”

Kazama examined the wolf’s hands for any kind of rash or abrasions, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary. “Did it hurt?”

“I didn’t even feel it in my hands, only at the back of my head, but no, it didn’t hurt. It just surprised me.”

The doctor moved behind him and gently parted the wolf’s fur to examine the back of his neck, but nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. There was no rash, no reddening of the skin or other irritations. He then stepped around and peered into the engineer’s eyes, but they also appeared to be clear.

The wolf returned his gaze. “There… there was something else,” he muttered after a moment.

“What?” Kate asked.

“You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Probably,” Robeson remarked with a smile, “but try us.”

“I didn’t feel it for long, since I dropped it in surprise, but along with the tingling, it was almost as if I could sense the way you all were feeling about my joke, but in my head. It was almost tangible.”

Kazama blinked and looked at him sharply. “It made you telepathic?”

“I dunno. I could almost feel what you were feeling,” said the wolf. “It wasn’t in words and I wasn’t reading anyone’s thoughts, but it was more a feeling than anything else. Wouldn’t that be empathy?”

“Okay, this bears closer examination,” Robeson said. He approached the water near the floating orbs and looked at them. He could not tell which one the wolf had picked up, so he chose one at random and fished it out of the water.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Clifton said in alarm, but the cougar already had it in his hands.

Everyone was focused on Robeson as he hefted the round plant, feeling the weight in his hands. Repeating what Andresen had done, he massaged it a little to get a feel for the object, but then his expression changed.

He blinked rapidly several times and moved a hand to the back of his head just as the wolf had done. He swallowed and then put both hands around the fleshy plant again.

“Someone is feeling amusement, watching me grope this thing,” he said without looking at anyone, “and someone else is aghast at putting myself in potential danger by handling an unknown plant. Although I can guess, I don’t know specifically which impression belongs to whom.” He reached out tentatively toward the dangling root and tapped it with hesitation, but it did not sting as he might have expected. He grabbed it between his thumb and forefinger, but it was just a root, nothing more.

The cougar held the round plant for another minute before he placed it back in the water. He wiped his hands on his shorts and then looked at the small group.

“That was weird,” he said.

“Wasn’t it, though?” Andresen remarked.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t go fondling the native flora and fauna until we know more about them,” Kittinger said. The feline pilot looked over at Kate and gestured to the other ground cover. “Did you feel anything when you were handling that stuff?”

“No,” she answered with a shake of her head. “It’s just a weed or an ivy of some kind.”

A distant roar came from the sky and each of the Furs looked up to locate the source. A glint of sunlight from a reflective surface identified Sir Barton approaching from the southwest. A bright orange, Clydesdale-class shuttle truck came in quickly, but rotated its engines seventy-five yards above the ground to hover before it slowed to a heavy landing denoting the weight of its cargo; it sank through the thin layer of ground cover to rest upon the solid earth beneath about fifty yards from Secretariat. Its atmospheric engines shut down and the whine slowed. They could all see the cottontail rabbit pilot’s silhouette inside the cockpit as Dana Barringer shut down her systems while awaiting the ground beneath the vehicle to cool.

The water plant forgotten, most of the landing party rubbed their faces at the dust the landing had stirred up, but Clifton was experienced had knowingly turned away when the plane landed. He was the first to recover and began walking across the ground cover toward the new arrival, leaving the others at the lake shore. He stopped when his foot pads felt the warmth of the heated plants. He crouched down to examine them, and even though they were still fairly hot to the touch, they were only slightly discolored. The heat was slowly dissipating and the original color returning to the vegetation; he thought it was remarkable stuff.

He looked up when the truck’s forward cargo hatch began to swing up on thick hydraulic arms. Dana’s statuesque form was standing beside the door frame just inside and she gave a silent wave when she saw the other pilot. Once the massive door had fully opened, she tapped another control to open the adjacent door aft. A set of ramps extended out from the belly of the plane toward the ground.

Arion’s lander moved out across the crater floor away from the shuttles and the other Furs waved from a distance, but most of the group walked out toward the lake shore, some of them down on all fours. Captain Robeson did not join them, but instead approached Sir Barton and walked up the ramp toward the rabbit once he could cross the cooling vegetation.

“You aren’t taking a moment to enjoy the new land?” the cougar asked with a smile. He felt it difficult not to stare at the pleasant curves filling out the top of her overalls, as well as the cottony puff tail behind her. Unlike Kate, whose chest had reduced in size with the transformation, Dana’s was just as eye-catching as it had always been.

The predominantly brown rabbit shook her head, oblivious to his interest, her tall ears waving with the action. “This fresh air tastes nice and I’m glad to see sunshine again, but our first priority is the perimeter fence for our protection.” She waved a hand at two ground-based dump trucks locked to the deck with sturdy cables. “You can help me get these offloaded and then Sean will be down shortly with a load of shipping containers and fencing. Secured in the beds of both of these trucks are crates with the military base tents we’ll set up for our tent-city to live in until we get actual structures put up, so someone may wish to unload those first. My next delivery will bring the earthmovers to build a runway so we won’t have to waste time waiting for the ground to cool between landings.”

“Once Doctors Kazama and Fernando can get more of us decanted and counseled, we’ll send personnel down to begin work on that fence. Arion is now out with his rover, marking where it will go to enclose six hundred and forty acres.”

“Why that amount?”

“It’s one square mile, a good round number, but it can be expanded later as the town grows.”

“Ah, okay.”

The felines helped the pilot unshackle the cables to release the trucks, and once they were free, Clifton and Robeson climbed into the hefty vehicles. One by one, the trucks started up and then rolled out of the shuttle bay down the ramps to the ground. After they had driven out a short distance from the plane, they parked and shut them down for now.

Inside Sir Barton, Dana was already stowing the cable tie-downs, but she would not be launching back to orbit just yet. There was no one else on board Arion-1 right now and she would need assistance transferring the earthmovers and other work trucks from the interstellar ship into her shuttle.

When everything was secure and readied for a return flight, and an external inspection has been performed, Dana joined Clifton and Robeson, and the three of them walked out toward the lake to join the others. Conversations had fallen to a lull, and standing beside the still water, the whole area was eerily silent. Even the sky was clear of clouds but for a few wisps far to the southwest.

“Just think,” Fernando said in a quiet voice as if he was afraid to break the silence, “This is what a new planet is like. No teeming masses or the hustle and bustle of humanity, no traffic noises, no voices raised in alarm or discontent. It’s quiet. It’s fresh. It’s all new.”

He closed his eyes and listened. His companions were also quiet, all soaking in the peaceful solitude, but then the illusion was shattered by the deep roar of War Admiral’s atmospheric engines as Sean Barringer rocketed across the crater valley.

The small group watched for minutes until the red shuttle truck dropped in to land a few yards away from Sir Barton, and the whine of the engines had barely wound down before the bay doors began to open.

Will Andresen picked up a quarter-sized pebble from the sand and then flipped it horizontally across the lake. Its shape was wrong, however, and plunked into the water instead of skipping across as the wolf had intended. He waited and watched to see if he had disturbed anything beneath the water, but nothing surfaced to look back at him.

Dr. Kate began walking back toward the new arrival and the others followed. By the time they got to the shuttle truck, the lop-eared rabbit was already at work. Two large boom arms unfolded from tracks in the upper cargo chamber and the first of several shipping containers moved out on large rollers toward the bay door after its lock-down cables released. Sean stood at the controls and glanced over at the furmen approaching the ramp.

“You may wish to step back,” he cautioned them “I’m experienced moving cargo, but I would prefer you not be beneath the containers as they come out.” As recommended, the small crowd retreated away from the ramps toward the vessel’s nose.

The robotic boom arms grasped lift points on the first container that had rolled out of its bay, and when Sean noted indicators that the load was balanced, he picked it up and swung it out over the ground. The shipping container was set down gently on top of the vegetation just beyond the ramps and then the clamps released, depositing the first immobile object on the surface of the planet.

Chapter Twelve

Unpackaged Personnel

Dr. Antony Fernando put his head down on the desk of the small office compartment that had been assigned to him on Arion-1 and heaved a heavy sigh. He had been fielding the unbridled emotions of decanted crew personnel for hours and the stress of dealing with them had left him with a strong headache.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” queried Arion’s calm voice.

“Yes, eject them all out into space,” said the counselor. The response he got from the SI was a quiet chuckle, not the reply he had expected. He lifted his head and peered at the digital image on his wall screen. “You find that amusing?” he asked.

Arion smiled back at him, but shook his head. “Not amusing, Dr. Fernando, but ironic in that such a cynical remark came from the ship’s counselor.”

The skunk narrowed one eye at him, but then a smile crept across his muzzle. “Yes, I suppose that was rather sarcastic of me,” he admitted. “I’m the one who is supposed to display a calm demeanor while everyone else is cracking up, yet here I am giving in to the pressures of the job.”

“Panic, disbelief and fear are all natural expectations of those who awaken to find their very physical existence has changed for the strange, but in addition to those, you have had to feel the full brunt of their anger as if you were personally responsible for it all.”

“All true, my friend. I have been a psychoanalyst for seventeen years and through all the cases I have dealt with, I have never experienced such vitriol toward my profession as I have in the past forty-eight hours. If I hadn’t had Dr. Kazama snip my butt, I’m sure I would have been sorely tempted to spray at least three of those I’ve counseled; their attitudes would have greatly deserved it!”

“We should all be thankful, Dr. Fernando, that you could not. I doubt my environmental equipment could have satisfactorily scrubbed the air following such an event.”

The skunk laughed aloud at the SI’s response. There were times when Arion said things that were so completely deadpan, but could elicit great amusement from those he made them to. He wondered if the Synthetic Intelligence had been designed to lighten emotions when things got too dark. It was often difficult to think of Arion as just a machine, especially when he could even play the part of a counselor to the counselor.

Fernando smiled up at the image looking back at him from the screen and raised a hand in concession. “No worries, I don’t regret that decision. I may be a skunk on the outside, but I can still be a petty human on the inside, and I would have been greatly tempted to use that attribute as a defensive – or even offensive - weapon. It’s best that I don’t have that capability. I think I frighten them enough just because of what I represent. Perhaps I need to cultivate that fear and simply withhold the fact that I have been descented; let them believe I’m still fully armed if they get too confrontational.” He said the last with an embellished grin of evil and was rewarded when Arion feigned a chuckle.

The counselor sat back in his chair and rubbed the base of his tail where it pressed up against the unmodified seat back. “I think I will take a break, get a cup of coffee and take a walk around the ship to calm my nerves before I face the next one Dr. Kazama throws at me. We’re only a little over halfway through the crew list, but they can wait.”

“I believe Dr. Kate put a fresh pot of raspberry tea in the galley refrigerator before she left for the surface. It is decaffeinated and will settle your nerves better than coffee will.”

Fernando sighed aloud and rubbed his temple. “Just what I need, decaf…”

“Yes, it is just what you need, and I am sure she would share a cup with you.”

***

“We’ve got to go back!”

Emma Bonavita grasped the arm rests of her ill-fitting chair with such a grip that the aluminum rivets holding it together threatened to pop loose. The sleeping blanket wrapped around her middle threatened to unravel and fall off, so she scrambled to hold it in place, covering up as much of her dark brown fur as she could. Emma had never been a big woman in the first place, but now that she was a brown bear, she had increased in size and was larger than she had ever been.

Her husband Angelo had also been decanted and was in the counselor’s office with her. As a married couple, they were now just as mis-matched as they could be. The short lynx looked over at his wife’s tirade and was doing all he could to keep from adding to the waves of anger to the situation.

As the caretakers of the myriad of embryos and DNA samples stored on the upper rotating decks within Arion-1, these two were especially distressed at the turn of events.

“I am sorry, Emma, but as I have already explained, returning to Earth is something we cannot do. We don’t have the necessary resources for a return flight, and as you knew before boarding, this was a one-way journey to Bellerophon.”

“This transformation is inexcusable!” the bear retorted. “We didn’t sign up for this!”

“None of us did,” Dr. Fernando countered in a calm voice. “This was an unforeseen situation.”

“All contingencies should have been prepared for!”

The skunk struggled to keep himself calm. “Since this has never been encountered within the history of human spaceflight, there was no way to anticipate that our DNA would be merged with the genetic material we brought with us.”

Angelo Bonavita tried a different tactic. “What has the command staff done to reverse our conditions?” the lynx asked quietly.

“Dr. Kazama and Arion have been researching all modern knowledge of genetic manipulation for a way to return us to what we used to be, but again, since there has been nothing of this nature before, there’s no precedence for this situation and no information. We’re all flying blind, but it’s not a total disaster.”

“’Not a total disaster,’ he says!” Emma growled. “We are no longer human! How is that not a disaster! Just look at all of us!”

Fernando silently counted to ten while the bear glared at him. “Angelo – Emma – you are still alive and even as a hybrid, you are both perfectly healthy. You still have your mind, will and emotions, and even your soul is probably still in there somewhere. You’re still you, just with a bit more.”

“It’s true, we are healthy,” Angelo conceded, “but how are we supposed to live like this?”

The skunk smiled. “One day at a time, just as we always have. Listen, folks – there is no magic wand to change things back the way they were. We came to Belle to live out our lives on a new world, and that mission has not changed. Our bodies have changed, and we do not resemble the same people we were when we left the Earth, but we are the same individuals inside. I still have my life’s work, knowledge, experiences and memories, and although I’m now covered in fur, have claws and possess a fluffy tail, I am still Antony Jean Fernando, ship’s counselor and psychoanalyst for Arion-1 detail to Bellerophon in the 51 Pegasi system.”

Emma huffed in exasperation, but held her tongue. She exchanged looks with her husband for a moment and then gestured between him and herself with a large hand-paw. “Look at us,” she said in a calmer voice than she had been using up until then. “I’m a bear. He’s a cat. How are we supposed to be a family? It doesn’t take a biologist to know that we’ll never have any other children like this – it’s just not biologically possible!”

Angelo’s expression changed as that thought had not occurred to him. “Children!” he exclaimed. “What about our daughter, Piale? What’s happened to her?”

Fernando shook his head. “She hasn’t been decanted yet.”

“Arion!” Emma called out. “Do you know what she’s been turned into?”

“Miss Piale Bonavita’s DNA has been merged with that of Vulpes lagopus, an arctic fox.”

“A fox!” Angelo said, gesturing in the air with both hands.

“An… arctic fox,” Emma breathed in a whisper. “Tell me, Arion, are there any other transformed foxes among the crew.”

“Just one. Victoria Barbicane is a hybrid of Vulpes vulpes, a red fox.”

Emma put a hand up to her chest. “My poor Piale,” she muttered. “There will be no children for her and no more for us. Our family bloodline is at an end.”

Angelo swallowed with difficulty. “Arion, sir – what of Emma and myself? Are there any others like ourselves on board?”

“There are other felines, Mr. Bonavita, but you are the only Felis lynx. There are other Ursus arctos brown bears on board, but only one male, Mr. Ethan Edwards.”

“Oddio!” Emma invoked. “I do not partner with Mr. Edwards!”

“Just a reminder – the sleepers on Arion-2 have likely undergone the same type of transformations. There’s a greater chance of matching species due to the higher number of colonists still on the way. All hope is not lost.”

Angelo hissed at that. “Is there no alternative to this life?”

Dr. Fernando shook his head. “No, I’m afraid not. The best we can do is accept what has happened and learn to live with our new… attributes. For now, I would suggest that if you have a mission checklist for destination arrival, you should get started on it. This will help take your mind off of our hybrid transformations as you focus on your jobs. As soon as you have accomplished your onboard checklist, Captain Robeson has ordered that all personnel are to transfer down to the surface for immediate base detail.”

Tight-lipped, Emma held out a corner of the blanket she was wrapped in. “What about clothing?” she asked. “I can’t do my work wrapped up in this, and none of my own clothes will ever fit me again!”

The skunk looked down at the simple shorts he wore and tilted his head with a smile. “Arion will scan your new bodies to print up appropriate garments for you. For now, everybody gets shorts appropriate for their anatomy, and for women who want them, he has a minimalistic type of top you can wear.”

“What do you mean, for the women who want them?” Emma sputtered.

Fernando looked her right in the eyes. “Most of the women have discovered that the fur on their breasts is thick enough to hide their nipples, and feeling like they are sufficiently covered up, have elected to go without anything on top to press down upon their fur.”

The female bear sputtered indignantly and looked down at her chest beneath the blanket. The psychoanalyst was not privy to knowing whether this woman’s chest needed extra coverage or not, and he really was not interested in finding out. She could make her own decision.

She swallowed and let a growl form in her throat. “I don’t like this,” she murmured, “not one bit!”

Pressing on, Fernando went on. “Arion will also need to re-scan your fingerprints so you will have proper access to your systems before you transfer to the surface. A galley tent has been set up on-site on Belle, so you can begin your planetside duties without having to do so hungry.”

Without waiting for a dismissal, Angelo stood up from his chair and unconsciously rubbed at his stubby tail. The short appendage was stuffed down into the back of a pair of yellow boxer shorts. The underwear was the only thing he had been able to get his digitigrade feet into after waking up to find what had happened to him, but he was anxious to get into a proper pair of walking shorts for now. Emma stood up beside him, clutching the blanket to her chest.

“From this office, the scanning room is just down the main corridor to the first junction,” Fernando reminded the embryonic specialists. “Turn right and then it’s in the second compartment on the left.” A corresponding map with the route highlighted in yellow appeared on Arion’s wall screen.

Without another word, the Bonavitas turned and strode out stiffly. Dr. Fernando rubbed his forehead and then looked at his tablet for his next patient.

***

Nick Ansara refused to sit down. He clomped around the room with heavy footsteps as the counselor calmly watched the troubled individual pace. As the colony’s chief animal wrangler, this was one of the more odd transformations that Dr. Fernando had seen so far. Being a blend of human and equine, Ansara had hooves for feet, but humanlike hands, and it was fortunate indeed that he had retained those. Unlike others, he would be unable to “get down on all fours” – he was fully bipedal, and although technically a horse, he was not a mythical centaur. In reality, he actually resembled the Greek mythological Ipotane, a race of half-humans with just two legs, hindquarters, tail, head and ears of a horse. It made the skunk wonder if the Ipotane had been ‘ancient astronauts’ who had gone through a similar genetic change passing through the cosmos to fall to Earth.

Ansara’s body pattern and coloration was that of a pinto, consisting of large patches of white and medium brown, and since there had been nothing for him to wear besides a sleeping blanket, he had chosen to walk about in his altogether. Fernando had to avert his eyes from the horse-man’s impressive endowments and focus on his head and shoulders.

“Send me back to Dr. Kazama,” Mr. Ansara stated after only a few moments in the counselor’s office.

“Are you feeling ill?”

The equine face turned toward him. “Emotionally devastated,” he said with pressed lips. “I know that’s your department, but Kazama’s the only one who can complete the end to my life!”

“End? Mr. Ansara – Nick! That’s not the solution to this situation!”

Tears welled up in the soulful brown eyes of the horseman. “I can’t live like this!” He opened his mouth and revealed an impressive set of equine dental work. “I’m never going to be able to eat meat ever again! I am not a vegetarian, but with these clackers I will never be able to eat anything else!”

The skunk tilted his head. “How do you know unless you try?” he asked calmly. “You might have to cut it up in smaller pieces first, but you may still be able to enjoy your steaks and chops.”

“How do you know?” wailed the man. “What if I’ve lost my taste for meat? I enjoy it too much and I couldn’t go on living without it!”

Fernando had to fight to keep a smile off his face. This client’s primary issue was not that he was horse-faced with hooves and a tail, but whether or not he could still eat meat. “After Arion can provide you with some appropriate shorts…” he started. At this, Ansara looked down reflexively toward his crotch and suddenly grinned despite his distress. “…perhaps you can try a steak dinner before you have to transfer down to the surface for work detail.”

The horseman seemed fascinated by his new private equipment all of a sudden, as if he had only now seen them, but he made no move to cover himself. “Uh, sure, Doc. A steak dinner would be great!”

“Arion?”

“I will make all the arrangements for Mr. Ansara. By the time he has been scanned for fingerprints and shorts, I will have a meal prepared for him.”

“Thanks, Arion!” the horseman said, looking at the SI’s image on the wall screen. He looked uncertain for a moment and asked, “What if I don’t like my steak?”

“Then we will endeavor to find something you do like just as enthusiastically.”

“Okay, maybe that can be good,” he said in a resigned tone.

After Ansara had left for the scanning room, the counselor slumped back in his chair and blinked several times. “Well,” he muttered aloud, “that was brief, but all over the place.”

“Every person has their own personal reactions to the transformation,” Arion agreed. “It just takes a different perspective for each to come to terms with it all, and we have to do what we can to discover what that motivation must be.”

“You are starting to repeat yourself.”

“For good reason. You seem to need to be reminded after every encounter.”

The skunk rested his chin upon a fist. The ship’s intelligence had a point.

***

A shapely form leaned forward across the desk toward the counselor. If he could read her feline expression correctly, the Bengal tigress was amused. “Can you see me, doctor?” she asked with a thrum underlying her voice. It was not exactly a purr, but with her present emotional state, it was hard to tell.

“Yes, my eyesight is better than it ever was,” he responded with raised eyebrows. “Is there a specific part of you that you wish me to examine?”

The orange, black and white striped feline chuffed in what was supposed to be hearty laughter. She stood up straight, put her hands on her hips, and then stuck out her chest. She waggled it with an impish grin. Like the African lioness on board, her transformation had left her with a greatly reduced bust, but she did not seem to have an issue with this. Her fur more than made up for her lack of clothing, as she seemed to be sufficiently covered in all the pertinent places.

“Specifically, do you see anything poking out that shouldn’t?” she asked saucily.

Dr. Fernando chuckled and shook his head. “There are bumps beneath the fur where I know your nipples to be, but since you have adequate coverage, there’s nothing poking out within view.”

“Okay, then – why do you and Dr. Kazama keep insisting that Arion print up clothing for me? The purpose of that is to cover up the naughty bits, but if they’re already covered, why the insistence?”

“I admit that you have a point, and Dr. Kate would likely agree with you. Like yourself, she feels that she’s sufficiently covered. We’ve had a time getting her to wear anything at all since she was decanted, but I think she wears the shorts just to appease everyone else.”

“Our project director’s a tiger too?”

“African lion.”

“Ah.”

Dr. Fernando recalled what he had read in her personnel records while she was being decanted. Angel Celeste’s name might literally mean heavenly angel, but she was anything but anyone’s sweetheart. She was a physical fitness, outdoorsy type who never shied away from hard work of any kind, and she respected anyone who pulled their own weight. She had little regard for lazy people, and although she was proud of her own accomplishments, she had never been boastful.

Like many others following behind them on Arion-2, Angel did not have a specific role to play amongst the colony population of talent other than “worker bee” (as she called it). She did what was needed and often volunteered to help with things if she saw the need.

“Well then, if that’s the case,” the tigress continued as if there had not been a pause in their conversation, “I will acquiesce and wear the shorts when in the company of others.”

“It’s more than coverage,” Fernando reminded her. “It’s more hygienic when you sit in public places.”

Celeste raised her eyebrows, but nodded. “Ah, I see what the fuss is about then. It isn’t about the actual nudity, but it keeps the furniture clean.”

“Something like that. It also provides a modicum of privacy if you get down to walk on all fours and forget to keep your tail down.”

The tigress chuckled at that and returned to her seat, remembering not to sit back all the way to allow for her new tail behind her, and also to stay on the towel draped across the cushion. “Okay, since you have me here, I assume it’s because you think I need counseling.”

The skunk nodded. “Waking up to discover such transformations have been traumatic for some,” he said. “It’s my job to help you get used to the idea. We can’t go back to the way we were and we cannot go back to Earth, so we must all learn to cope with the changes in our lives.”

“Personally, I find this fascinating.” The feline held up an arm and rubbed her padded fingers through her fur. “I never considered myself to be an animal person, but I have to admit to certain fears.”

“Would you care to discuss them?”

She thought about that for a moment and then gave him a solemn nod. “First there was the shock when Dr. Kazama revealed what happened to us all, and then what had happened to me personally. Despite this, or maybe in spite of this, I accepted it readily enough.” She waved a hand, generally indicating everything around them. “After all, we’re out here doing something that’s never been done before. Yes, we’ve tried to colonize other planets in our solar system, but we’ve never gone interstellar before – this is our first time in another star system, so yeah, we’re going to discover and experience things we’ve never, ever faced. I figured this was just one of them. I mean, what if we had put the genetic material for the animals on the decks below us? Arion says they haven’t been affected, but would we have discovered a bunch of animals that were now ‘uplifted’ to human intelligence instead of humans with animal attributes?”

“That’s a good point. Is that what frightens you?”

She shook her head. “No, when I think about that, I’m glad it turned out the way it did. It’s worked to our advantage and I’m sure we’ll find good ways to use what we have become. What frightens me, however, is not the fact that I am now part tiger, but that in just the short time I’ve been awake, I keep experiencing animalistic behaviorism and instincts.”

Fernando leaned closer, resting his elbows on the table. None of the others had mentioned this. “Go on.”

“I took a peek into some of the other cryo pods before I reported here after my decantation. There are some still asleep that I would call prey types, and I found myself feeling predatory towards them. What I felt was strong and the intensity of it frightened me when I realized what was happening.” She looked down at her hands, and then back up into the skunk’s eyes. “I’m afraid of what might happen if my inner tiger gets loose.”

“I see,” Fernando mused. “Like all temptations we are faced with in life, you will need to learn to control yourself. Do you see me as prey?”

Celeste smiled, but shook her head. “Not really. Maybe it’s the knowledge that while you are not another predator, you have a built-in defense mechanism that my species somehow knows to avoid.”

“Does it make a difference to know that I’ve been descented by Dr. Kazama?” He pulled his fully fluffy tail around from behind him and stroked it affectionately.

She laughed at that. “Really, descented? I didn’t know that, but no, the feeling is instinctual. I don’t feel the need to stalk you through the corridors.”

The counselor chuckled. “That’s good to know, actually. Still, if you feel drawn to prey types, remember that you must control those urges. Those are your fellow colonists, and if the same changes happened to Arion-2, we’ll have many more prey types coming to live among us in just a few years.”

“Perhaps by then I’ll have a handle on these feelings.”

Fernando sat back. “As someone who enjoys fitness, you have had to be accountable with your physical regiments. You can do the same with mental exercises. Any time those feelings get too strong, feel free to seek me out. I will help you work through them – help you to accept that you have them, and can stay in control of who you really are despite them.”

Celeste stood up and then walked around the table toward him. Without saying a word, the tigress indicated that he should stand up. The counselor got to his feet, and then the feline woman wrapped her arms around him in a warm embrace. She gave him a peck on the check and then smiled at him.

“Thank you,” she said in all seriousness. “I know you’re just doing your job, but it’s one that’s important to me right now. If I can’t reign in my instincts, I may very well need your counseling.”

“You’re welcome, Ms. Celeste.”

“Angel. Please call me Angel.”

“You’re welcome, Angel. Come see me anytime. I will transfer to the surface after the last of us have been decanted, but I’m still available for now until you disembark.”

Celeste wiped moisture from her eyes and then backed away with a suddenly jaunty expression. “Okay, now I’m going to go get some drawers on before I give temptation to others I might meet!”

“Yes, please!” Fernando replied with a grin. “Go already!” The tigress laughed and then was gone.

The counselor got up, closed the office door and then returned to the desk. He had not been wearing his techwatch since the band pinched at his arm fur, but he picked it up off the table and tapped a small screen for the phone app. He pulled up his contacts and then connected to the project director. It only beeped once before her feline face appeared on the screen.

“Yes, Doctor, what can I do for you?”

“Dr. Kate, I’m ready to make my report if you have a moment.”

“This is a good time. We just finished erecting another of the military tents and are taking a break before we start the next one.”

“How many have you gotten up?”

“Eight so far; three large ones and five smaller tents. Of the large tents, one is for central operations, one for the galley with seating, and one to house the fabrication units that are being brought down. The others are smaller bunkhouse tents. We’re focusing on those so the personnel you’re sending down will have a place to sleep, rest and have protection against the weather.”

“The weather?”

“Our crater is located in the middle of a rainforest,” the lioness reminded him. “Conditions have been good today, but Arion predicts showers tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. We’ve been trying to step up construction efforts to get as much done as we can before it does.”

“Understandable.”

“We’ve been putting everyone to work as you’ve sent them down. Please tell me you have more.”

“I have five who should be ready to disembark in a couple of hours,” the skunk replied to the techwatch. “Decanting takes time, but I’ve had so many frightened and mad people to process afterward that things have slowed considerably. I have only had four come through my office this morning, but Dr. Kazama just sent me a text that he has one more to send me before he takes a break.”

“Five more, eh? How many do you have left to process?”

Fernando looked up at the wall screen where Arion put up a list of names for him. “We still have nineteen left to decant. With luck, the last one will up and about tomorrow afternoon.”

“Edwards, Gordon and Vincent are still helping the Barringers transfer equipment from the ship to the surface with the shuttle trucks, though I may assign one more to help them. Everyone else you’ve sent down have been divided up between constructing the perimeter fence, the runway and the tent-city. Fortunately for the shuttles, they finished the runway a couple of hours ago. The ground cover plants were cleared away, and although the runway is not paved, several feet of soil was taken down to a hard, stony layer that is relatively flat and level from the blast of the meteorite impact. We appreciate your work, Antony. We’re working hard down here, but I think you have the most difficult job of us all. Keep at it, but don’t give yourself burn-out with so many bodies. Take time for yourself too.”

“Thank you, Kate.” He glanced at his tablet and nodded. “I’m expecting young Piale Bonavita soon, and then she can join her folks and the others to take Omaha down to you. After they’ve gone, I’m going to have a meal and a nap.”

The lioness chuckled. “I don’t blame you one bit. Take care, Dr. Fernando.”

“You too, Dr. Kate.”

Chapter Thirteen

Beyond the Rim

When the passenger hatch of Omaha opened on the newly-constructed runway, a fluffy arctic fox stuck her nose out of the doorway and began sniffing at the aromas of a new world. She looked up at a partly cloudy sky just as a beam of sunlight broke through and illuminated her white fur as if it was a brilliant halo surrounding her.

“Quit gawking and clear the doorway,” grumbled the brown bear behind her. Piale looked back at her mother and snickered, personally amused at the kind of creature the woman had become; the daughter felt that it fit her mother’s personality perfectly. The ursine biologist narrowed her eyes at her and then put a large hand in the middle of her back. She pushed the fox toward the ramp, and although it was not a hard shove, there was enough strength behind it to get the girl moving.

The lynx who walked out of the hatch behind his wife frowned at the distant activity toward the camp. The two of them were still disgruntled by their transformations, somehow feeling as if it was someone’s fault. Their daughter did not share their misgivings, however, and that seemed to irk them further; Piale loved her new look and was sure she could somehow use it to her advantage.

The ground cover that had been cleared from the runway area was resistant to burning, so for now it had simply been pushed up in a pile paralleling the cleared ground. Just beyond was a twelve-foot perimeter fence that would surround the compound and was still being assembled.

Following the short feline was a larger Bengal tiger. The woman stepped out into the sun, but paused to stretch down on all fours, her spine crackling. Bringing up the rear was the horseman, who towered over them all by a head, and he had to duck to get through the opening. He looked down at the tiger’s backside before she finished her stretches; she looked over her shoulder at him and caught his gaze with a grin. She straightened up and then hooked arms with him.

“C’mon, handsome stranger, let’s see what this town has to offer!” Ansara chuckled, quietly enjoying the attention, and followed her down to the ground. A cloud of dust approached at a high rate of speed, and when the moving object finally slowed to a stop beside the shuttle plane, two canine types smiled out from the windows of a work truck. The hydrogen-powered vehicle looked as if it might have been new when they left Earth, but it was now covered in dirt and grime from recent use.

“Welcome to the New World!” called a tan Labrador retriever behind the wheel. “I’m Rex and this coyote beside me is Takuma. We’re here to take you to the main camp.”

“Where are we supposed to ride?” Angelo Bonavita asked, peering into the small cab.

Rex pointed to the back of the truck with a clawed thumb. “Sorry, this taxi has no seats. You’ll all have to pile into the back, but we don’t have that far to go.”

Piale smiled in at the cute coyote in the passenger seat. “May I sit on your lap?” she asked sweetly.

Takuma swallowed and glanced over at his friend, but Rex did nothing but smile back at him. He looked back at the white fox, acutely aware that her bare, furred chest was resting on the window frame right in front of him. “Uh, sure,” he responded hoarsely.

Piale laughed at his expression and crawled in through the window without opening the door. Keeping her eyes locked on his, she slid in across the coyote’s lap and then put her arms around his neck to stay in place.

Emma Bonavita scowled at her flirtatious daughter, adjusted the thin top she wore, and climbed up into the back of the truck without further discussion. The others clambered in and sat on the floorboards. Rex was about to put the vehicle into motion, but Henry Clifton approached his window.

“I was about to launch back up to the ship, but I just got a call from Dr. Kate that she needs to see me,” the cheetah told the canine.

“Climb aboard.”

Once the pilot was situated in the back with the others, Rex took a more leisurely pace back to camp than he had driven on the way out, mindful of the uneven ground beneath the ivy covering, but the plant life cushioned a lot of the vibrations. Eventually, they would have actual roads, but they had not yet cleared lanes for them.

When they neared the center of camp, it was a bustling hive of activity. Earthmovers were removing the ground cover, which had been nicknamed “crater weed” since they had yet to discover an actual use for the stuff, but over to the side near a river feeding into the lake was a tent-city that was still being erected to house the total population of the planet – all ninety-eight of them. Once the town site was ready for proper construction, actual buildings would be assembled. The farmers and biologists were already marking surveys to plot out gardens to grow the food they would all need to survive, and the topsoil removed from the landing strip would be added to the garden areas.

The truck pulled up to a stop in front of one of the larger tents and two figures stepped out to greet them. Although everyone on the crew had previously met the project director and the ship’s captain, this was the first time any of them had seen their anthropomorphic forms.

“Welcome, it’s good to see you!” said the African lioness with a smile after they had all gotten out of the vehicle. She already had advance knowledge of these five from the counselor, so she was not thrown off by the dour expressions that two of them wore. “I am Dr. Kate and this is Captain Robeson. We have not yet named the city we will be building, so for now, welcome to Bellerophon.”

“Just when are we going to get this animal issue resolved?” Emma grumbled right off.

“Just as soon as you can resolve it for us,” Captain Robeson responded without hesitation.

“What? How should I know what to do?”

“Exactly, just like the rest of us.”

Emma sputtered and grumbled, and the captain raised a hand. “Listen, I’m sure you have already heard this from Dr. Fernando or Dr. Kazama, but our situation has never happened before, so we have no one who knows how to reverse it; not you, not me and not even Arion. It’s being researched, but there’s little hope that we’ll have any quick method to change what occurred to us over a span of decades. Accept it for now, be thankful you’re alive and healthy, and do the jobs you are needed to do.”

“So what are we supposed to do?”

Dr. Kate looked up at the bear without smiling. “Emma, you and your husband will join the team constructing the fence on the northeast perimeter. They are close to merging their section with the next, but with your help they can finish soon.”

“Building a fence! We’re embryonic specialists!” Angelo sputtered.

“Yes, and before we left Earth, you were informed that you would be putting up fences, roads and buildings when we got here and over the course of the next five years. Until your specialty skills are needed, which may not be for several days or a week, you will help anywhere you’re needed, as assigned. Understood?”

Neither of the Bonavitas looked happy, but each held their tongue. Their daughter stepped forward and held out a hand. “Hi, I’m Piale,” she said cheerily. “Put me wherever you need me.”

Kate shook the young fox’s soft hand. “Thank you,” she replied in appreciation. “I don’t want any of you to consider this as punishment, because putting up the fence is an important task to keep out potential dangers lurking outside our crater that may wish to investigate our activity. We have all been working on this; Captain Robeson and I just got back from the southwest corner of the perimeter, where we have spent the past four hours installing security sensors on the panels with the team building that section of the fence. We’re all taking a meal break, and then we’ll be back out there to fit in a gate.” She looked from the fox to the tall horseman. “Mr. Ansara, I need you and Ms. Bonavita to work with the team on the southeast. Rex can get the four of you outfitted with tools, fasteners, work aprons and water, and then drive you out to your assigned areas with more fence posts and panels.”

The horse simply nodded, but Piale politely said “Yes, ma’am.”

Kate looked over at the tigress, with a quick glance at the shuttle pilot waiting patiently at the back of the group. “Ms. Celeste, we’ll need you back up on Arion-1 and you can return with Henry Clifton. Rod Vincent, Ethan Edwards and Dave Gordon are up there moving equipment and supplies into the shuttle trucks that their pilots deliver down here. Everything we brought from Earth to build a town needs to be offloaded. I’m afraid that it’s a big task and will take a while, but they could use another body.”

The tigress flexed an arm and smiled. “I haven’t had a good workout since I woke up and this is a good opportunity to give my new muscles some exercise.”

“Most of it will be in zero-gee conditions in a pressure suit. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nope, I have certifications in both.”

Kate nodded. “Very good, thank you. Takuma, can you grab the other truck and take these two back out to Omaha, please?”

“Right away, ma’am.” The coyote led his riders to where another set of vehicles sat parked nearby.

“We still have about five hours of daylight to do as much work as we can, then we’ll send out the trucks to recall everyone back here to headquarters. With your help, we hope to have the fence completed before we turn in for the night.”

“We’ll have a good meal at the end of the day and a debriefing for everyone here on the surface,” Robeson added. “They’re still decanting personnel up in orbit, but we hope to have everyone else up and occupied with our next tasks by tomorrow evening.”

“Any questions before you get to work?”

“Just one,” said the horseman. “Where’s the nearest toilet?”

“It’s up in orbit!” Rex called out from inside the truck cab.

The cougar smiled and pointed to a row of tents just a short distance away. “You’ll find latrines in the first of the small tents. Mr. Bletchingdon dug them for us himself, but it’s the best we could do in short notice until we get the proper equipment and plumbing down from the ship.”

“Leave your dignity at the door,” Rex added.

“Wait, what?”

Robeson smiled, but continued. “Give yourselves fifteen minutes if you need the facilities, then report to Rex for the things you’ll need out at the fences.”

Ansara looked confused, but when no one elaborated, he walked away to do his business. Piale fell in step beside him. “I think your mane is lovely,” she told the horseman.

“Thank you,” he replied with a smile. “You may find this amusing, but my favorite shampoo is Mane & Tail.”

“Why is that amusing? I’ve used it myself.”

“Because Mane & Tail was originally created for horses, although it gained popularity when humans successfully began using it too. How fortunate for me that I’m both!” He brushed a hand through his mane and then swished his tail at her. The white fox suddenly understood and laughed aloud.

“You’re in a cheery mood,” she said. “You looked almost as miserable as my parents and didn’t say much of anything on the ride down from the ship.”

“I apologize. I’ve only been awake for just a few hours and I’m still getting used to my new body, pondering that how some of this is ironic.”

“Ironic, how?”

He tapped his chest with both hands. “After all of this, I’m still a meat-eater!”

“I’m a meat-eater too. What’s the big deal?”

“How many carnivorous horses have you seen?”

“Carnivor….? Oh, I see what you mean. Horses don’t eat meat.”

“I have teeth designed by nature to eat oats and grains, but my human half still enjoys the flavor of cooked meat and my hybrid digestive system can handle it. We tested that theory with a steak dinner when I was still on the ship, although I had to cut my meat into smaller bits for these teeth to chew them. So, yes, I am a carnivorous horse!”

They reached the first tent past the larger ones and it was marked only with a hand-drawn note bearing a crescent moon pinned to the fabric door flap. Ansara raised his equine eyebrows and stepped inside. He stopped and Piale bumped into him from behind.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

The horse stepped aside to let her see. Inside the tent were four wooden seat frames built over deep holes dug into the ground. There was only a single wide towel hung between each of them to create the illusion of a stall, and a roll of biodegradable toilet paper imported from Earth was sitting on the ground beside each seat. The odor in the tent made Piale’s nose wrinkle.

“Well, this could get awkward,” Ansara said. “If you would wait outside, I’ll only be a moment.”

“Nonsense. You take the one on that end,” the fox said, “and I’ll take the one on this end.” Without waiting for a reply, the girl moved to her seat, turned around and dropped her shorts. Ansara hastily moved to the other end and tried to hide behind the towel.

“At least he left room at the back of the seat to raise a tail,” the fox’s voice remarked.

***

A white Samoyed walked in through the entrance of the galley tent and looked around until he spied the captain and the director sitting together just separated from the rest of their fence team. Dr. Bali Manhigh walked across the room, took a seat across from the felines, and placed a handful of the crater weeds on the table.

“Hello, doctor,” Kate said politely. “You look like somedog with a discovery.”

The botanist dropped his jaw in a canine grin at her word choice. “Indeed I am, Miss Kitty.”

“What have you found?” Robeson asked after lapping coffee from a wide brimmed cup.

“I’ve been examining this ground cover, trying to determine if there’s anything in its makeup that we should be concerned about. After all, we now have piles of the stuff dozed up all over the place.”

“And?”

“It’s fibrous, and as we’ve already found out, it’s highly resistant to heat and fire. The same goes with cold. It can withstand temperatures at least down to minus one hundred twenty degrees Fahrenheit without losing its integrity; that’s the lowest temperature I can achieve with the equipment I have, but I would like to send a sample up to Arion and have him expose it to the absolute cold of space.”

The cougar shook his head. “We’re exposing ourselves to whatever’s here on the surface, but I’m not sure I like the idea of taking an alien weed up to our ship.”

Kate looked over at him. “You’ve seen too many science fiction movies. Are you afraid it might infect our SI?”

Robeson laid his ears back. “Maybe I have, but why take the risk of any kind of contamination?”

“I can send some up in a sealed container,” Manhigh tried again, “and then Arion’s waldo can take it outside the plane to open it there without even bringing it onboard the ship. I’ll have sensors inside the container to record its reaction to the extreme temperature, and then he can reseal it to send back down to me whenever the shuttle returns. It never need go inside Arion-1.”

“That still makes me nervous.” Robeson spoke into his techwatch. “What do you think, Arion? Can you do this without bringing it inside the ship?”

“Affirmative, Captain. Since the plane docs with a belly hatch, the container can be placed inside a shuttle’s unused port-side airlock, where my waldo can retrieve it directly into space without exposing it or the container to the ship’s interior. Once exposed to the absolute zero conditions of space, it can be resealed and placed back inside the airlock, where it will stay until Dr. Manhigh can recover it on the surface.”

Robeson looked at the director and then gave the botanist a nod. “Okay, I’ll allow it under these conditions.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Aside of its thermal properties, what else have you discovered about this weed?” Kate asked.

“It is completely benign to any of our amalgamated physiologies, and I have been using data Arion has compiled from each of our hybrid species. I think the most this plant could harm one of us is by brushing its coarse leaves against bare skin to give us a scrape. It’s high in fiber, but almost null in nutritional value if ingested. I doubt even our cows and sheep would care for it. It’s too bad they can’t graze on it since we have it growing in abundance.”

“No nutritional value,” Kate repeated. “If someone did swallow a piece of it, would it make them sick?”

“I doubt they would even get a stomach ache. It would just pass through the digestive system inert, although its fiber might help clean your pipes on the way out. It’s unlikely to appeal to anyone, as it has almost no flavor either, so I can’t see anyone eating it by mistake.”

The captain tilted his head. “How do you know it has no flavor?”

“I tried some and it’s really chewy, almost a bit rubbery. It does have a flavor, but it’s so subtle even to my sensitive taste buds as to have none at all. I suppose if someone wanted to experiment and try adding flavoring, it might suffice as a local replacement for chewing gum.”

The African lioness fingered the leafy material and then turned it over. The root system beneath it had stiffened since it had been pulled from the soil, but to her it looked little different than any other root strands she had ever seen.

“Does this stuff have any redeeming properties?”

Manhigh shrugged. “I suppose its fibers could be spun into thread to make warm winter blankets. The leaves themselves would probably make a good insulator in between the walls of the buildings we construct.”

Captain Robeson looked interested at that. “I would call that a benefit,” he said. “We’ll be clearing out so much of this stuff as we make room for our town, that we can repurpose it in our buildings. We were planning to run it all through shredders and then scatter it across the rest of the ground cover out in the crater for lack of anything else to do with it. We already have piles of it just from clearing space for the fence and the runway.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“Doctor, why don’t you and I go have a talk with Mr. Andresen. As an engineer, perhaps he can find a way to put your idea into fruition.”

Kate looked at her techwatch. “I need to return to the fence work with our team,” she said to the cougar. “You can catch up to us after you’ve discussed turning Dr. Manhigh’s crater weed into insulation.”

“After I get this one figured out, I want to take a look at a bosom plant I keep hearing about,” the Samoyed remarked.

***

Secretariat landed four hours later. When Rex transported Joe Kittinger and a number of crates to the tent-city, the pilot walked into the galley and saw a pair of adults, a squirrel and a mouse, feeding a three-year old a mouse at a nearby table. Across the tent were two other adults, an opossum and a Siberian husky. None of these had been passengers on any of his personnel drops, so they must have come down on the Omaha; he did not recognize any of them.

He moved around the folding tables and chairs to the far pair. “Hello,” the orange cat said when they looked up at him. The standing opossum was wearing a cooking apron and put his hands together with a smile.

“Yes, can I get you something to eat?” he said. “I have only a limited menu right now, but I hope to have more once further food stock is brought down.”

“You must be Rocky,” the orange feline remarked. “I’m Secretariat’s pilot, Joe Kittinger. I didn’t bring personnel this time, but I did fill up my plane with a number of self-refrigerated crates labeled for you. They’re in the back of the truck outside.”

The opossum’s smile widened. “Yes, I am Piers Roche. That would be my food stocks! Merci.”

The husky stood up and held out a hand after wiping it on a napkin. “I’m Dean Ruston. I just finished eating so I can help you bring in his boxes.”

Kittinger shook the proffered hand warmly. “Thanks, I would appreciate the help.”

Arion’s voice issued from the pilot’s techwatch. “Mr. Kittinger, I was asked to give you a message after you had arrived on the surface.”

“Go ahead.”

“Captain Robeson would like you to select a couple of others who might be in the camp at the time you got here so you can take a Flitter and do some reconnaissance outside of the crater rim.”

“What are we looking for?”

“The surrounding forest timber was laid over by the blast of the meteorite impact. He would like to know if any of that lumber can be used for firewood since there are no actual trees growing inside the crater and the weeds don’t burn.”

“I like that idea,” the husky remarked. “You can take me with you. I’ve been running an earthmover all day and could use a change of scenery.”

“You can count me in,” said another voice. The trio looked over at a human-sized mouse that had joined them. “My name is Haru Kirato.” He smiled and thumped one of his large round ears with a finger and added, “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Like Mr. Ruston, my wife and I have been out all day surveying the crater floor for suitable placement of crop farmland and I would also like a change of scenery. Taking a trip outside to the forest beyond sounds good to me.”

Kittinger smiled and nodded first to the mouse and then to the husky. “Good, you made conscription easy for me!” He looked over at the mouse’s family. “Will you be okay leaving them?”

“Emiko is the one who suggested that I should volunteer. She will tend to our little Daisuke.”

“Since we don’t know what we might face outside the crater, we’ll need something from the armory for our defense.”

“I have access to that,” Ruston supplied. “Pistols, rifles or compound bows? My personal favorite is a .44 Magnum revolver.”

“Bows?” Kirato repeated. “Why do we have bows and arrows?”

Kittinger smiled. “I know it sounds archaic, but if we can’t find local elements on Belle to make gunpowder when we run out of the limited supply of ammunition we brought with us, bows and arrows still leave us with some level of protection.”

The mouse looked at Ruston. “I prefer a rifle with a scope, please.”

“Let’s bring in Rocky’s crates and then we can load what we need in day packs for our aerial reconnaissance.”

“Water, snacks and First Aid kits,” Kirato suggested. “Work gloves, chainsaw and a couple of axes to bring back samples.”

“I will put together some snack packs for you,” Rocky volunteered. “Come back in fifteen and I’ll have them ready for you.”

***

Parked nearby with the camp vehicles was a V-780 Bell Flitter, one of the latest eVTOL aircraft off the line at the time they had departed Earth. It was painted glossy black with white highlights and its enclosed cabin could hold four passengers with a small amount of cargo or luggage. Mounted above the cabin within great round shrouds were two large tiltrotor air fans for lift and speed. Both fans had been folded and stowed for transport in the ship’s cargo area, but were now deployed for flight. Four of the craft were included in the manifest, but only this one had been delivered to the surface earlier that morning. It had not yet been taken up, so the pilot had to spend some time to follow a checklist on his tablet to make sure everything was filled, primed, pinned and in place before it could even be switched on. Its fully electric system could be recharged with fitted solar tiles spread out all across its upper surface or with an external hydrogen-powered generator system that was stationed nearby.

While the pilot was preoccupied with his important task, Kirato and Ruston talked casually about their transformations. Each had greatly differing reactions when they were decanted and discovered the situation that had changed them all. It was a common topic across the camp. They had also become aware that each person’s hearing was quite a bit more sensitive than it had ever been as a human, and they were already learning that grumbles or whispers beneath the breath might be easily heard by someone else, possibly even the person or persons grumbled about.

“I still haven’t gotten used to this tail,” Haru complained. “Before I left the ship, I nearly got it caught in every automatic door I went through, and it’s so long that I have to keep others from stepping on it at times.”

“I know what you mean,” Ruston added. “They’ve altered some of the chairs down here on the surface, but I always seem to find the ones that don’t have a modification for tails and I keep sitting back on it. I’ve already lost count of how many times mine has gotten stepped on, too.”

“My wife has accepted the changes well enough, but her biggest complaints were that the holes for her piercings all closed up, and also that she can no longer wear her favorite outfits.” The squirrel smiled and fingered the hem of his shorts. “She always followed the fashions, but she doesn’t think much of this latest trend.”

“Is she wearing a top? I didn’t notice.”

“Her fur isn’t thick enough to hide her chest, so she’s wearing a pleated tube top that Arion printed out for her. She doesn’t like the way the elastic feels even on her short fur, but says she doesn’t have a choice in the matter.”

They talked on in quiet voices, and after nearly forty-five minutes, Kittinger announced that they were ready to go. Their gear had already been stowed on board, so all they had to do was clamber inside and get into their flight harnesses. Once the pilot had checked to make sure his passengers were belted in, he contacted Arion to report the mission orders of this flight.

The tiltrotor fans above them spun up quickly, and although they made quite a roar of sound outside and kicked up a fair amount of dust, the small cabin they rode in was well insulated against most of the noise.

The Flitter left the ground vertically, having no need of a runway and Kittinger took it straight up to get a good view of the crater from overhead. The skies in the vicinity were mostly clear with only high cirrus clouds above them, and although they could not see it from inside the crater, he knew a haze of moisture would be hanging over the distant rainforest surrounding them in all directions.

His companions had their noses pressed to the windows to look at the vista below. A moderate-sized lake located just off center in the crater, with several feeding rivers converging from the high ridge rock springs and snow runoff. Near one of the rivers was the tent-city under construction, and a short distance from that was a large swath of area cleared of ground cover down to the dirt with the displaced crater weed dozed up in large piles. Located a short distance from all was the runway that had been cleared of weeds and soil down to the bedrock beneath, and then surrounding everything but the lake within one square mile was a twelve-foot perimeter fence with sensors atop each anchor pole. This was a relatively small area of the overall crater floor that was roughly twenty-five miles across, covering approximately a little more than three hundred fourteen thousand acres. As the town would later grow into a city, there was still plenty of room to expand for additional housing and farmland.

Having no specific destination, Kittinger randomly chose a direction and then flew off toward the northwest, following one of the rivers all the way to the ridge rock, which was still higher than their current elevation. His passengers fell quiet, so the only conversation within the cabin was of the pilot in contact with the SI that followed their progress from orbit.

As the Flitter put miles behind them, the furmen began to see signs of life. They flew above flocks of creatures that were analogous to birds, but most were either too low or too small to make out details. Closer to the higher elevations of the rising crater floor, they could also see smaller creatures moving about in small clusters. Using a pair of binoculars that he found in a seat pocket, Kirato focused in on one such group and described aloud what looked like some kind of large, land-walking starfish grazing on the crater weed. Arion reported that these were now called Belle Stars and were only previously seen within a different crater that had once been considered as a landing site. They had probably already been here, but only just now seen.

Other small creatures they saw from a distance were four-footed animals covered in gray shaggy fur or hair. These had a large hump between their rear hip bones and a broad, oversized snout that weaved back and forth as they walked. They did no grazing, just seemed to be wandering along the crater floor near where the ridge rock jutted up toward the sky. None of them could come up with an appropriate name to call the things, so they left those until later.

Another group of creatures appeared to be no more than individuals of flat, undulating mass that floated across the upper elevations of the crater as winds were merely sliding them around at random. These they named Windsweeps, but they took the time to neither examine them closely nor grab a sample; they merely made videos for the biologists and had Arion transmit them back to camp.

Kittinger decelerated as they approached the craggy edge of the crater and lifted in altitude slowly so they could spot any movement among the rocky extrusions. There were many shadows as the sun crept toward the western rim, so spotting anything smaller than a family dog might be difficult.

The pilot watched his readings for the outside conditions and watched the temperature drop as they drifted ever higher. Some of the peaks above them were coated in white powdery snow. Twenty minutes later, the Flitter finally rose above the tallest crests at just over fifteen thousand feet elevation above sea level and the feline was silently amazed that the crater ridge reached such heights. Just how big was the chunk of rock that had survived through super-heated entry through the atmosphere and was still large enough to create a crater twenty-five miles across with an upheaval of rock surrounding it nearly three miles high?

It took them another few miles crossing over the ridge rock before they finally approached an end to the crater itself. What they had traversed consisted of outward-leaning peaks that had been thrust up and outward, but many had also collapsed upon themselves. There were regions that looked as if the rocks and boulders were nothing more than eroded stones in some gigantic, dried-up river bed, but they never saw any mountain passes where a terrestrial vehicle might get from inside the crater to the outside. If not for their flying crafts, the colony might very well be cut off from the rest of the continent – and the world – where they had put down to make their home.

“Whoa, look at that,” Haru breathed quietly. Laid out for miles before them now was the horizontal forest they had come to see. With the peaks safely behind them, the Flitter dropped in altitude. Bleached by the intense heat of the impact and years of lying in the sun, the wood stood out in shades of white, yellows and tans. What used to be rainforest was now dead for many miles, but the dark, living forest in the distance made a stark contrast to the vista.

Kittinger did not see the need to keep going further out, so he slowed their speed and began looking for some place where he might be able to land. There was no sign of the actual ground, however, as the fallen lumber was stacked over on itself to an unknown depth.

“Look for any place suitable where we can set down,” the cat told his companions. “It doesn’t look like there will be many choices.”

The Flitter drifted cautiously for many minutes, the sound of its fans softer at an unhurried speed, but then the Siberian husky tapped a claw on his window. “There,” he said in the quiet of the cabin.

There appeared to be a rocky knoll where the fallen trees had been deflected away, leaving a small clearing of open ground where green growth was peeking through. Kittinger drifted over to hover near the spot and determined it was just large enough for the Flitter to land.

“Does it look safe?” he asked.

“I’m seeing no movement other than what our fans are blowing in the wind,” Ruston replied after a moment.

“Same on this side,” reported the mouse.

“Arion, we’re setting down now.”

“Be careful, gentlemen.”

As softly as he could make it, Kittinger set the tiltrotor aircraft down on its landing gear. The green growth flattened beneath the solid rubber tires, but the ground beneath held solid. The pilot cut the power and allowed the vehicle to settle before he even unbuckled his harness.

The system whine died away and Kittinger monitored the outside conditions on their sensors while his companions watched through the windows. All was quiet.

There were five full minutes of patient waiting and then the orange cat finally left his seat. “Okay,” he said quietly, as if something outside might hear something inside the insulated cabin, “everyone grab a backpack and a firearm. Be cautious and on the alert for anything that might have been drawn to our landing.”

“Roger.”

“Got it.”

Kittinger held up a semi-automatic pistol, mindful of the trigger guard that made it a little snug getting his padded finger into. He left the safety on for now, not wishing to fire by accident. Taking a deep breath in anticipation, he thumbed the control to the side door and it slid aside on well-lubricated tracks. The cabin was filled with the scents of a semi-dead forest and it made all three suddenly uneasy.

Ruston took point and stepped out first, holding a rifle with its strap over a shoulder and a double-bladed wood axe in his hands. Kittinger moved out next and then the mouse armed with a rifle.

They saw no movement, no life at all; nothing like rodents, birds or even insects. No doubt the noise and wind that accompanied the large, dark flying thing from the sky had frightened or silenced anything in the area.

With his companions watchful, the Siberian husky walked to the nearest fallen stack of tree trunks and looked up at them. Each shaft was over two feet in diameter, and they were piled up high, but any leaves and branches they might have possessed had been totally burned or blown away. They were nothing but large poles now and each of them were thirty or more yards long; this had once been a forest of very tall trees, but they were now all laying down upon the ground.

The growth covering the ground was a mixture of plant life, some with different shapes of stalks and leaves, some with different color blooms and pods. They would have to harvest a few for the botanists or they would never hear the end of it.

Ruston set his rifle on the ground leaning against a horizontal trunk and then removed his backpack. Thus unencumbered, he hefted his axe and made a tentative chop without putting much force behind it. He did not know how hard the wood might be and did not want to send shock waves up his arms unintentionally.

The axe blade bit into the wood and made a satisfying cut; not too hard, but not too soft, it was a medium-grade wood. Getting a feel for it, the canine chopped several more times while his companions looked on. He removed a hand-sized chunk of wood, along with a number of splinters before he stopped. He picked up the chunk and examined it closely. He was a construction worker, not necessarily a botanist, so he could not tell much about what he saw. It looked like any type of wood he might find in some forest on Earth, and there were many, many variations on that far distant world.

He placed the chunk into his pack and then reached into the pocket of his shorts. He pulled out a butane lighter and then crouched down near some of the splinters he had made; he had never been a smoker, but had always carried a lighter everywhere he went for occasions that might need some light. Kittinger returned his attention to the surrounding area, his feline senses keen on any movement or sound that might present itself, but Haru’s gaze was riveted to the husky’s actions.

Ruston held up a piece of splintered wood and then coaxed a finger of flame from the lighter. He touched the two together and was rewarded when the wood caught easily. Despite that the splinter was dry, however, it was a slow burn and did not consume very quickly. He pocketed the lighter and then with that hand picked up another splinter, thicker and longer. He touched it to the one that was burning and the flames traveled across to it. The wood smoke aroma was not entirely the same as what they were used to, but it was nothing unpleasant.

He could feel the heat of the fire on his fingertips and eventually he had to drop them both to the forest floor. A bit of dried detritus at his feet began to burn, but then he scooped up a handful of rich soil and smothered it out before it could spread. Something wriggled in the dirt, but was gone before he could see what it might have been.

“We had to come a long way to find it, but I think we hit pay dirt for the firewood,” he said quietly. “The only problem is that we may never find this exact landing spot again.”

“What do you mean?” asked the mouse. “Can’t we use the GPS coordinates where we are now to come back later?”

Kittinger chuckled, but kept watching the surrounding shadows. It was getting closer to sundown and he could tell the sunlight was getting weaker. “To get GPS coordinates, we would need a ring of global positioning satellites orbiting Belle. Right now, the only electronic satellite in orbit is Arion-1. It’s hard to get a triangulation on a position with only two points.”

“I have a rough set of latitude and longitude coordinates that I overlaid onto the planet when we made our first orbits,” Arion’s voice came from each of their techwatches. “It will not be as specifically accurate as GPS, but I am sure they could get you near to this location on a return flight.”

“Do you plan to launch any GPS satellites in the future?” Kirato asked.

“Yes, but they have not yet been unpacked from cargo. They were among the first items loaded at El-Five, and will be among the last to come out. The Global Positioning Satellites will also relay communications around the globe to the techwatches when deployed.”

“Okay,” Kittinger said, “you two grab chainsaws from the cabin and cut wood for ten minutes while I stay on watch. Then I will switch out with one of you and put in another ten minutes. We will try to carve out enough wood to take back for one night’s bonfire, but we’re losing daylight and need to be quick about this.” He looked up at the sky and spotted the planet’s two small moons, captured asteroids that always traveled together, if he remembered correctly. “The flight back will be more dangerous, as I’ll be on mostly instrumentation. We’ll have no beacons or towers to lead us back, so I will be dependent upon Arion’s assistance to get us back to camp in the dark.”

***

Forty minutes later, the Flitter took off into the darkening sky. They had seen no indigenous lifeforms in the vicinity of their landing spot, but as the night crept upon them, they could hear unfamiliar nocturnal sounds, some in the distance, some not too far away. They stayed vigil, but nothing approached that they were able to see or hear, whether prey or predator.

With the aft part of the cabin filled with chopped wood, the weary trio rode back in silence, but Kittinger had to fully concentrate on the Flitter’s controls, especially as they neared the higher elevations of the ridge rock. Wind gusts were now coming through the rocky crags that they had not experienced before and the cat was focused so they might not be blown up against them.

The feline was an experienced and accomplished pilot, but even he had to admit that he had never flown in such conditions as this before. The sun had completely set without even a glow by the time they left the peaks behind, and the only lights they could see miles in the distance were from the artificial lamps of their encampment. A solitary beacon showed up on the Flitter’s systems and Kittinger followed it in.

The only thing on his mind as the miles flowed in the darkness behind them was what Rocky had prepared for their supper and that he was looking forward to whatever it might be.

Chapter Fourteen

Final Decantation

Dr. Kathleen Ruston walked across the camp grounds on all fours, leaving the hustle and bustle of the galley tent behind her. A small bonfire of native wood was burning within a pit dug into the soil and several Furs were there to enjoy a familiar campfire experience. Her attention was on the placement of her footsteps, creeping silently among the crater weeds toward where the surveyed area of the “town” would go. Leaving the camp lights behind, her sensitive feline eyesight adjusted quickly to the darkness.

When her padded feet and hands reached where the weeds had been cleared away, she stepped upon a thick layer of soil, but she did not stop there. The African lioness continued out across the land for several long moments before she finally stopped and rested on her haunches with her tail curled around her feet. She turned her gaze toward the cloudless sky and looked up at the glittering canopy of stars overhead.

Here, away from the lights of the encampment, far from the lights of the crowded cities of Earth, the sky was crystal clear over this new, virgin world that until now had been untouched by the hand of mankind.

Dr. Kate had seen the stars from the Mohave Dessert, she had seen them from a ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and she had even seen them from the McMurdo Research Station in the Antarctic, all areas far removed from an overabundance of light pollution. Until now, however, they had never appeared so bright, clear and numerous as she had ever seen them from the Earth.

There were so many visible stars that it was almost difficult to recognize some of the old constellations among them, and even when she did, some of those patterns seemed a little misshapen due to the distance that Arion-1 had traveled from their familiar skies. The Milky Way was almost overwhelming in its immensity and she stared up at it in genuine awe.

As an adolescent, Kate had often dreamed of going out among the stars, and although they still looked as distant now as they had in her younger days, she had actually been “out there” — and was still out there. As astronomical distances went, she had barely traversed a tiny fraction of space to get to 51 Pegasi, but her heart swelled up with pride that she had come even this far. It was a childhood dream come true.

As she absorbed the detailed vista, a brilliant streak of light shot across a portion of the sky only to fade out almost instantly. She grinned a happy adolescent smile and made a silent wish upon the shooting star. Where its tail disappeared took her eyes almost right to Belle’s two daughters, the asteroid-caught moons they had named Deidamia and Laodamia – or Dei and Lao for short; always together, the satellites were currently waning crescent. Encouraged by the find, she searched the skies for the only other planet in this solar system, but she was unable to find Dimidium, the gray gas giant. Since it was closer to the sun than Bellerophon, it had probably already set below the horizon. It would likely be this world’s morning and evening star.

Feeling really relaxed for the first time since she had awoken from her cryo sleep, Kate settled down upon the ground and rolled over onto her back so she could continue staring up into the night sky. She lay there for several good, long minutes looking for Sol, their home star, but then something else caught her eye.

Something flew overhead. Something large. It was completely silent, but it occluded the stars when it passed across her field of vision. Kate froze all movement, even her breathing became shallow.

At first she thought perhaps it was a trick of her eyes in the darkness, but then it happened again, several times. This time, she heard a faint whoosh that she was uncertain if it was the flap of a wing, but whatever it had been was not close to the ground, therefore it had to have been something very large. There were so many forms of life on this new world that it was impossible to tell just what it had been, and whether or not it was dangerous to her kind.

The lioness suddenly felt vulnerable, laying on her back with her belly exposed. She got up onto all fours with her senses trained on the sky above her, but she neither saw nor heard anything more.

With a nervous swallow, Kate quickly loped back to camp where there was relative safety in numbers. The perimeter fence should keep out anything coming at them from the ground, but they had no protection against something that could fly over it.

***

“No, Dr. Kate. None of my drones flew over your position last night after dark. I had three out across the crater on patrol for nocturnal life, but the distance of the closest to camp was five point two three miles. None of my drones are equipped with stealth dampening and you would have heard and identified one before it reached your position even without your enhanced hearing.”

The lioness looked out into the morning rain from the tent quarters she shared with Ken Robeson, silently noting that the only muddy areas across the camp were where the crater weed had been removed. Everywhere else glistened with the warm rain.

“Thank you, Arion. Did any of your drones find anything while on patrol?”

“Small swarms of bioluminescent insects analogous to moths consistently flying four point three meters above the surface of the crater, following one of the snow runoff rivers to the northeast. Light from the camp was visible from their position, but none of them displayed attraction to the illumination from that distance, but that could be due to the fact that they made their own lights. None of these have been observed during daylight hours.”

“Could a large swarm of these account for what I saw last night, thick enough to block out the stars?”

“That would be a possibility, but you saw only a silhouette, not an orange glowing mass undulating across your line of sight.”

“True. I also heard a slight whoosh, which was probably not hundreds of tiny moth wings flapping in unison. In my opinion it was a large wing of some kind.”

“I will endeavor to broaden the range of the drone scanners during tonight’s patrol to search for anything that would fit your description.”

“Thank you, Arion. I may not have been in any danger from whatever it was flying overhead, but I don’t want to take the chance of something trying to carry off any of the smaller livestock, or even one of our children.”

“Fully understood, Dr. Kate.”

The lioness peered out through the rain. She could see a furman here and there trying to dart between the drops among the tents, but for the most part the camp was quiet and still. As it happened within the rainforests of Earth, this downpour would be short-lived, but until it stopped, there was little they could do with their duties. Having spent time in the Amazon, she knew this was likely to be a daily occurrence.

Kate had not yet had her breakfast or coffee; the rain had begun only moments after she had awoken to Ken murmuring in his sleep. She looked back inside the tent to the pallet where they had slept, and the cougar was currently curled up as if he was a large housecat amidst the blankets. Although there would be plenty of tents for all individuals once they had them all up, the two felines had opted to share one for now since the shelter had plenty of room within.

She smiled, fond of the feline captain, and was pleased with the relationship that had developed only weeks after they had all discovered their transformations. It had surprised her as much as it had him, and although she had always liked the tall black man, it was only recently she had begun to see him in a new light. No doubt their feline instincts had played a role in that.

Her attention was drawn back to the outside. Almost as abruptly as it had begun, the rain stopped and the overhead clouds had already started to break up and move on, allowing morning sunlight to peek into the crater.

***

“Dr. Manhigh. I have retrieved the canister with the crater weed sample from Omaha’s portside airlock.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

“Using thrusters, I am putting fifty yards of space between Omaha and my waldo. It is unlikely there will be a destructive reaction, but protocols recommend safety precaution.”

“Fully understandable. Proceed.”

“I am in position now. Thrusters holding at station-keeping.”

“My sensors are active. Go ahead.”

“Opening canister now. The crater weed has instantly frosted over from moisture on the leaves, which have turned pale. No other reaction.”

“Reseal the canister.”

“Sealed within a vacuum. Returning to Omaha to secure canister within the airlock. You may retrieve it the next time Omaha returns to the surface.”

“Thank you, Arion, my friend. This is appreciated.”

“You are welcome, Dr. Manhigh.”

***

Dr. Antony Fernando awaited his last client. The entire crew had been fully decanted and he was ready for his final post-awakening counseling session. Arion had informed him that Dr. Kazama and Nurse Jessica had finished up with the teenage girl who had been the first to report in when they were still at El-Five, which made her the last to come out. She was now being scanned for clothing and fingerprints, and would join the counselor momentarily.

Whitney Marker was one of the younger crew members who had shipped out on Arion-1, but her parents would be joining her later from Arion-2. She was only sixteen, but Dr. Kate had authorized the girl traveling alone so she could get some hands-on training in animal husbandry before her folks would later join her in those duties. Despite that Whitney was well-liked among the colony personnel, she had always held confidence issues, but the mission program that her family had volunteered for had given her a purpose in life and she had begun to have a better self-image.

While he waited, Fernando used a hairbrush to groom his striped tail. Its fur was voluminous and it had the annoying habit of picking up bits of lint and other detritus from the ship’s deck, so he found himself cleaning it often.

A tentative knock on the open door of his office heralded his final visitor, but when he looked up with a smile to greet her, he had to fight to keep his expression from faltering. The teen girl’s transformation had turned her into a cow, or rather due to her age, a heifer.

She was a bovine hybrid and the morose look in her eyes told him that he would have a greater challenge with her than he had with even the more difficult clients he had already seen. She also clutched an orange sleeping blanket around her middle as if she were nauseated.

No girl wants to be called a cow, much less be a literal cow, and her job in the colony would be working with the cattle they would be raising as food. The breed they had brought with them was Texas Longhorn, and both bulls and cows grew impressive horns. The teenager who appeared at the door already had a head-start on hers, so getting her out of her cryo-pod must have been quite an endeavor for Dr. Kazama and Jessica.

He was about to speak, but then the unexpected happened. She dropped her blanket to the floor, revealing her naked form to him. Instead of a pair of human breasts upon her chest, however, what she had was the beginnings of what would later become an udder, with four nubs that would grow into teats, all located far down on her abdomen, just above her crotch. The short hair covering her body was a coloration mix of dark red and white.

There were tears in her eyes as he looked her over, unable to look away, but after a moment she bent to retrieve her blanket. She pulled it back up, wrapping it around her shoulders and then clutched it around her middle. In all this, she had not said a word, but her expression spoke volumes; she would rather be dead.

***

Dr. Kazama picked through his meal with a pair of decorative chopsticks he had brought with him. Arion had made for him a bowl of katsudon when the physician had said “Surprise me!” A deep bowl was filled halfway with white rice, with strips of panko-breaded chicken, onions and a fried egg on top. A slice of daikon radish topped it all and then it was covered with a lid to trap in the steam and juices to permeate it all. The river otter had not had this particular meal in ages and had dived right in with gusto.

Dr. Fernando sat across from him at the galley table, and as an omnivore, Arion had prepared for him the same dish. It was his first time eating this meal and he discovered that it was rather tasty, although he used a fork instead; he had used chopsticks before, but somehow was unable to manipulate them with his new fingers.

“I’m glad that’s over,” the skunk murmured between bites. “Everyone’s testy or afraid, although there have been some downright amused with their new figures.”

“I can’t say that I’m amused,” the physician replied, “but after my time in this new form, I like it.” He looked up at his companion with a smile. “When I started to get older, I found myself getting tired of the mug I saw in the mirror every day. Although this one might not have been the one I would have initially chosen if I’d had the choice, I do find it an improvement over my previous face.”

Fernando scratched at his muzzle with a clawtip. “I’m glad to hear it. I’m still getting used to mine, and I’m often startled when I look into a mirror, but I think I could grow to like it in time. None of us are born with a body we probably would have chosen, so it’s better to accept what we have been given and make the best of it.”

He glanced up toward the ceiling, idly wondering why he did that, and spoke to their overseer. “Arion, have you had any issues dealing with us in our changed forms?”

“Only with some unintended side effects of having fur-covered personnel on board.”

“What do you mean?” Kazama asked with a furrowed brow.

“The facilities on each of the rotating decks that everyone has been using since awakening has experienced blockages of fur in the plumbing, as well as in the air handling filters. The cleaning robots have also found tufts in the hallways near the baseboards and have been working overtime to clean up balls of fur since your decanting. Some have been clogging the vacuums hard enough that it has taken the articulated limbs of the waldo to clear them out.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Fernando muttered before taking another mouthful of his meal.

“I guess that’s what happens when you have a zoo loose in a closed system like this ship,” Kazama added.

“Aside of increased housekeeping,” the SI continued, “I have had no issues with the personalities associated with the new crew forms.”

“What about the Bonavitas?” Kazama asked.

“Fortunately for myself, none of their ire has been directed at me.”

“Lucky you,” the physician muttered. The counselor looked at him with a shared expression, but his professionalism prevented him from verbally agreeing with the otter. Instead, he tilted up his bowl, using his long, thin tongue to capture the last of the rice kernels. When he finished, he looked up at his companion with a smirk, just imagining how animal-like he must have just appeared.

“Along with my furry transformation,” he said, licking his lips, “I have discovered that my tastes have changed as well. I still like a lot of the foods I used to eat – at least those I’ve tried since decantation – but I’ve found some things that don’t appeal to me anymore.”

“Like what?” Kazama asked curiously.

“Coffee, for one, and that’s been my biggest disappointment. I used to drink it every morning as my daily start to the day, but now I can’t stand the flavor. It’s too bitter to my new taste buds.”

Kazama nodded. “I can still drink it, but I have to doctor it up differently in order to enjoy it.” He gestured at the counselor’s voluminous tail. “Do you have any grooming issues with that?”

The skunk wrinkled his nose. “I have yet to find a soap or shampoo that doesn’t make my fur feel gummy or dry,” he complained. He looked up toward the ceiling again. “Arion, I know we brought along a few dogs to help herd the livestock. Did we pack any pet shampoos for their care?”

“No, Dr. Fernando. Nothing of the kind was included in the manifest, although I have in my archives the formula for a popular Mane and Tail shampoo utilized on horses and humans alike. Mr. Ansara is particularly fond of using the bottles he brought along with his personal effects.”

Kazama looked up in amusement. “Maybe you could recreate and distribute it among our personnel as Pelt & Paws shampoo.”

Fernando grinned. “As long as it will work on a skunk’s fur, I would be game for that.”

“I will give the suggestion due consideration.”

“Thanks, Arion.”

“I guess no one thought we would need anything like that,” Kazama remarked.

“How could anyone know we would become living fursuiters?”

“I meant no one thought we would need them for our pets.”

“Ah, it looks that way. Once those dogs are decanted, they’re going to have a fit when they see the bunch of us!”

“If we brought any, all of the cats will run away and we’ll never see them again,” Kazama laughed. “The perimeter fence won’t hold them in!”

Fernando chuckled with the levity, but their line of thought reminded him of something else. “I think I would be surprised of some if our people don’t want to do the same thing.”

“Climb the fence and run away?”

“Talking with them all, there are some of the prey types who are afraid the carnivorous personnel might look at them as a meal.”

“That would be a natural reaction, I should think.”

“Yes, but I’ve also talked to a few of the predator types who have admitted to having those exact instinctual feelings.”

“Okay, that’s makes for potentially dangerous atmosphere.”

“Oh, I agree,” said the counselor, “but I have tried to reinforce the notion that we are not just animals, that we still have our human intellect, morals and sense of decency. The temptations may be there underlying the surface, but we will all have to resist temptations as we have always done.”

“Yes, but this isn’t like trying to resist eating a fattening piece of pie.”

“No, it isn’t, but it’s more akin to resisting the urge to punch someone in the neck or put a knife in them when they’ve done you wrong. We may now be hybrid animals, but we don’t have to act like them. We seem to have the species behavioral instincts of our base animals, but we’re also still human and know the difference between right and wrong. This is what I have been trying to strengthen during our counseling sessions.”

Dr. Kazama crossed his arms and nodded his head. “Let’s just hope you were successful. If we cannot reverse these changes, and I don’t see how that can ever happen, we’ve got to learn to live with who and what we are – and with one another. This isn’t the wild where anything goes.”

“Doctors,” Arion said in the brief lull, “Secretariat has docked for refueling and will be ready to transport you and the remaining the crew down to the surface in forty-five minutes.”

“Thank you, my friend,” Fernando responded. He stood up and picked up their meal bowls and utensils for cleaning. “That will be just enough time to pack my bag and gather up the last of the decanters.”

“Likewise. I have a few medical supplies to pack up to take down with me, but most of what we’ll need has already been sent down to the camp.” The otter glanced around the room and then got to his feet. “Arion, I don’t mind the ambiance of your ship, but I prefer fresh air and sunshine. Jessica’s already down there, but I’ll be glad to set up my practice on the ground.”

“Quite alright, Dr. Kazama. We can still converse through your devices as needed.”

***

Secretariat released its docking clamps from the interstellar ship and small attitude jets pushed the shuttle plane away to a safe distance. The only personnel still aboard Arion-1 were those still loading each of the shuttle trucks with all equipment and supplies brought from Earth.

Moments later, Joe Kittinger dipped Secretariat’s tail toward the planet and dropped below the interstellar ship.

“Welcome to Secretariat Airlines,” Kittinger’s scratchy feline voice came over the cabin intercom. “Flight time to Camp Belle will be approximately two hours, ten minutes. Just sit back and relax.”

“Is Camp Belle the name they chose for the town?” Ginger Martin asked.

Dr. Kazama shook his head. “No, that’s just our pilot being himself. We haven’t chosen a name yet. I think they’re waiting until everyone is on the surface so we can discuss names and take a vote.”

Dr. Fernando looked around the small cabin and scratched an ear. He had the feeling that there should have been more on this flight, but he could not think of anyone not with them. It was just he, Dr. Kazama, Ginger Martin and Victoria Barbicane. He knew that Rod, Angel, Ethan and Dave were still onboard Arion-1, so maybe that was throwing him. There should be no one else on the interstellar vessel.

I am so glad to be heading to the surface, he thought to himself. He knew that hard physical work awaited them once they got established in the camp, but he was actually looking forward to that. Like Dr. Kazama, he missed sunshine and a fresh breeze blowing across a lake.

Elsewhere in the cabin, a red fox vixen and a gray she-wolf had their heads together in quiet discussion and Fernando smiled at the irony. Ginger was a gray wolf, yet it was Victoria who had the ginger-colored fur. What the two of them did not know is that as a Fur, the skunk possessed hearing that was more sensitive than a human’s and he could hear everything they whispered to one another.

“Are you and Barry still together?”

“I hope so. I haven’t seen him since I awoke, but I’m ready to run my fingers through his wool.”

“Wool?”

“Yeah, I was told that he’s a sheep!”

“A wolf and a sheep!”

“Yeah, who knew, eh? I hope he’s ready to try out the logistics of that!”

“Logistics! Ginger, that’s wicked!”

“Yeah, well, just because our bodies have changed doesn’t mean the relationship has to end. What about you and Rusty?”

“Rusty?”

“Sorry, Dean Ruston. Didn’t you two have a thing together?”

“Ginger, I find him fascinating, but we aren’t a couple. We only had dinner a couple of times on Arion-1 after Rocky moved his kitchen to the ship’s galley.”

“Ol Rusty has been my work partner for a while. I think you and he would be good together.”

“He’s nice and we’re friends now, but I’m afraid we haven’t clicked like that. I wonder what kind of critter he’s become?”

“Do you want to know, Victoria, or do you want to be surprised?”

“Do you know?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me!”

“Dean Ruston is a Siberian husky.”

“Ohh, really? I’ve always liked those.”

“There you go. Check out his new equipment first chance you get!”

Dr. Kazama chirped and then coughed into his small fist. “Ladies,” he said aloud, “we can all hear what you’re saying.”

Two pair of female eyes grew wide. “You can?” Victoria gasped. She looked over at the skunk, who tapped one of his ears and nodded in agreement.

“Every word.”

“Ohmigosh!” the vixen replied aghast. She put her head down on her arms against the empty seat in front of her, embarrassed to her core. Ginger simply exploded in laughter.

“Sorry, doctors!” she said. “You weren’t meant to hear any of that!”

“Obviously,” Kazama said dryly. “We all have better hearing that we used to have. Keep that in mind the next time you engage in girl talk around other people.”

“You can bet we’ll never forget it now!”

***

Four hours later, Dr. Kate watched as War Admiral touched down on the runway. In addition to another full load of material, the rest of the human (or furman) population of the crew was onboard this shuttle truck. There was still much to be brought down from the ship in orbit, and Captain Robeson had mentioned sending up more personnel to speed up the process, but for now, Kate wanted an all-personnel staff meeting on the surface. For the first time since the keel had been laid for the great interstellar vessel, there was now no human presence aboard the Arion-1.

Aside of those on board the shuttle, everyone else was now gathered in the galley tent, occupying all of the tables and chairs. Rocky had graciously provided drinks and snacks for the mob, so once those on War Admiral came in on the work truck left for them, they could get started.

Ten minutes later, a zoological party that was mostly all felines entered the tent: an orange cat, a cheetah, a tiger, a standard jaguar, a spotted snow leopard and two rabbits all found seats at a table near the back of the room. Pilot Sean Barringer gave Dr. Kate a thumbs up to signal they were all there so she could start the meeting.

“Good afternoon,” the African lioness said over the multitude of conversations in progress. “May I have your attention, please?” Little by little over the next couple of moments, the voices quieted and all eyes were upon her.

She silently noted that almost all of those considered prey species were sitting together at the front of the room. She did not know if this had been prearranged or if their herd instinct had kicked in naturally, but standing at the front of them all, it had not escaped her notice. Only the two rabbit pilots sat among the predator types, and she noticed with faint alarm that several of them seemed to be unconsciously licking their thin lips.

The opening of the tent was behind her and the morning’s rain had pumped humidity into the air, but fortunately there was a breeze blowing across the crater valley that helped keep them cool. She outstretched her arms, gesturing to them all.

“For the first time since Arion-1 departed Earth, we are all together again,” Kate said. “As I am sure that all of you have been notified by now, we lost two of our friends on the flight out due to the same issues that gave us all our unexpected transformations. We have a few things to discuss right now, but after the meeting is adjourned, we will gather at a place we have chosen out away from camp by the perimeter fence to hold a burial service for Ms. Felicia Painter and Mr. Eric Frasier.” She looked back at the lop-eared rabbit near the back and added, “Sean, would you see to it that their cryo pods are brought in from your ship after the meeting?”

“They are in the back of the work truck we brought in from my plane.”

“Very good, thank you.” The project director clasped her hands together and then gave her people a brighter expression. “Okay, moving along - now that we are all here and awake, I would like to say Welcome to Bellerophon! The ninety-eight of us make up the entire population of this pristine planet, and although some have already been working to establish our footprint here, we still have much to learn about our new home. Each day for the rest of our lives will likely bring us new discoveries, and even new dangers. We will do all we can to live with this new world, but keep in mind that it has its own rules that we will need to learn to obey.

“Don’t take anything for granted. This is not Earth. Everything from bacteria to larger life forms will be different, and each will make its presence known to us in time. We may find things that are similar to the things we’ve known, but be fundamentally different. We may even find things completely dissimilar or unknown to anything we have ever come across before. It may be foreign to us for a while, but we’ll get used to it all and it will eventually start to feel like home. Until it does, my friends, be wary, be on the alert, but know this – we are here to stay.” This last statement accompanied a direct gaze toward the Bonavita couple.

She gestured to the cougar standing off to the side to join her at the front. “For those of you still getting used to our new faces and bodies, you may or may not know who this is. Before his transformation, you knew him as Captain Kenneth Robeson, commander of the stalwart ship that brought us here, Arion-1. What you may not know about is a decision was made before we left Earth, that once we arrived at our distant destination and all personnel were decanted and on the surface, his role as ship’s captain would come to an end, and he would then assume new duties as the Mayor and Judge of our new town. Likewise, my role as Project Director will transition to Deputy Mayor as his second-in-command. He will assume the primary duties of the position and delegate tasks to me as needed. If you have a problem or an issue, take it first to your department heads – if you have one, but then you can come to either Ken or myself if you are unable to find resolution at a lower level.”

A ginger arm with a black-furred hand raised for her attention. The lioness nodded to the vixen. “Yes?”

“I am sorry, ma’am, but we just arrived and haven’t learned everyone yet. Since you said you were the Project Director, does that mean you are Dr. Kate?” Several people chuckled and the lioness smiled, but she held up a hand to quiet the crowd as the cougar returned to his seat.

“She has a valid question. Yes, Ms. Barbicane, I am Dr. Kate Ruston. I apologize for not introducing myself first off since a number of you haven’t seen me with my new face yet.”

The fox grinned. “I assumed it was you, but I wanted to be sure.”

“You have good timing, though, because this is a good lead-in for one of the other topics I was going to bring up.” Kate looked around and casually gestured at the crowd. “We have all changed. There’s no denying that, and as far as we know, there is no cure – no reversal of our genetic changes. From what I’ve seen of those I’ve spoken with, none of us are readily recognizable as the people we used to be. Our faces, our bodies, and even our voices are so different now. Just as you did not recognize me standing here, you had to assume who I was due to my known practice to take charge and make speeches. You may have worked with someone for years before we left Earth, but not know who they are standing beside you now.

“One of the first suggestions made to me when we all started having problems recognizing one another was to issue name tags to everyone. While this would help us learn who one another is, it’s not very practical to attach something like that to a person’s body hair or fur. You may still need to introduce yourself to everyone you meet, but if something happens to one of us and we need to be identified, that could be difficult to do.”

“What do you mean, if something happens?” Emma Bonavita asked loudly.

“You have new bodies that you are still figuring out,” Kate answered, “and we’re on a strange new world. You might come across something that affects your new physiology and you could get a sudden sickness. If someone passes out or become violently ill, knowing who they are quickly could be the key to saving their lives or administering aid. Until we all learn who everyone is amongst our population, we need some way for others to know who we are.”

“Do we need to start carrying wallets again with an ID?” someone else called out. “I left mine with my family on Earth!” Kate did not see who it was, but she held up a hand.

“Not wallets, but we have discussed several methods of identification. One is to have an encoded microchip inserted just beneath the skin at the back of the neck that can be scanned with any nearby tablet or techwatch.” Voices raised suddenly, but Kate barreled on, speaking over them in a louder tone. “The second method is for everyone to wear military-style dog tags with your name, species and other vital information engraved upon them.” Again she had to talk over the other voices that threatened to take over the meeting. “Or…” she practically shouted, and it was a moment before they all let her continue, “Or… we can all wear a simple collar around our necks with an identification tag on it.”

“You’re talking about tagging us like pets… like animals!” someone exclaimed.

Before Kate could take back the discussion, someone else called out, “Why not tag us like animals? Take a look in a mirror – we are animals!”

A red wolf stood up and suddenly let out a shrill whistle. He had had to practice making the sound with his new mouth configuration, and in time he had been successful. The crowd fell silent immediately.

“Thank you, Will,” Kate said to the engineer. “Now, I know none of these methods are ideal, but we will take a vote on it. We do need some kind of identification, but it has to be something we will all wear for our own good!” She held up her arms, showing her techwatch to everyone. “I want everyone here to send me a message with your vote on which of these methods we will use. Once I have a predominant tally for all of our numbers, I will announce what you all voted for. Once we have that decision, we will all abide by it, whether or not you think it’s ideal.”

Before she could drop her arm, tiny message pings began issuing from her techwatch. After several long moments, both the crowd and her wrist became silent. She looked at the results and counted up the votes. Then at last she commanded everyone’s attention.

“We will all wear military-style dog tags. From the comments I’ve read, it’s unanimous that the embedded microchips are demeaning, and no one wants to wear a pet collar, so the lesser of these three evils are the military tags. Some of you are Vets and will have been used to wearing them anyway. I will have Arion begin printing them to the fabrication units, to be distributed as soon as they are ready.”

There were a few grumbles and low remarks throughout the crowd, so Kate gestured toward Ken. “Do you have anything to add to our meeting, Your Honor?”

The cougar grinned at his new title and got to his feet. “Over the next week,” he said in a raised voice, “I want everyone to start thinking about what we should call our town. The committees on Earth left that up to us, but none of us on the command staff have come up with anything so far. Think about it, but don’t get silly and suggest something like Fur Town or Furmankind Central, as I’ve overheard some of you calling it among yourselves. This is the first human settlement on Bellerophon, so its name should at least be respectful. We’ll meet again in a week, and if we have any decent suggestions, we can vote on it then. If not, we don’t have to be in a hurry to pick out a name. Something appropriate will come to us.” He looked back at Kate and nodded. “That’s all I have for now.”

The lioness spread her arms again. “That concludes our meeting, so if you will follow us outside, we will bestow our final respects to the two who were unable to join us in our new lives.”

Chapter Fifteen

Missing Marker Mystery

Arion-1 was quiet. Aside of frozen embryos and mature livestock still in cryo, there was no life aboard – at least not in the biological sense. The master of the interstellar vessel was life of an artificial nature, and although technically without gender, the Synthetic Intelligence was generally referred to with a masculine name reflecting the vessel itself.

Arion never slept and was always busy. Although the tachyon drive was now silent and would no longer serve the great ship to cross the void between stars, it had done its intended job well. Part of that system would remain active as long as necessary, providing power to the onboard systems still in use. Numerous integrations had been completely shut down as no longer necessary, but others were still useful tools for the maintenance and continued operation even with the ship parked in geosynchronous orbit.

Although some of Arion’s responsibilities were focused on keeping the quiet vehicle functioning, many new duties had been awakened upon arrival over this new living world. He was in constant communication with his human companions now safely on the planet, providing them with knowledge and direction for the tasks they performed, dispensing information from his vast databanks holding the entirety of human knowledge up until the moment of Earth departure.

Extensions of his entity were shared through techwatches, data tablets, fabrication machines and other equipment they utilized. Landing rovers were quietly gathering information on this new world from other locations around the globe, even as flying drones patrolled the skies over the impact crater where the colonists were making their home.

The previous AI surveyor of this world had not detected any predators during its two-year mission of observation, but that did not mean they were not out there, especially under the canopy of the perpetual rainforest that covered most of this particular continent.

As a measure of safety, Arion launched several more landing rovers from his cargo bays and guided them down from orbit, riding behind robust heat shields. In addition to targets on the continent, he had also launched two to each of the north and south polar regions, as well as to other landmasses. His goal was to scan and observe Belle, collecting as much information as possible on the biosphere that BR549 could never have done with its antiquated equipment. The numerous rovers they had brought would be making detailed analysis of the planet from ground level while squadrons of drones could look over the world from higher elevations.

In addition to all of his duties and responsibilities, he also used his android-like waldo to patrol parts of the ship where he had no cameras, microphones or sensors to monitor them remotely. The waldo was capable of looking into closets, cabinets, crates and access panels as needed, going anywhere that only a previous human tenant may have needed to go.

It was often during these manual sojourns when he might find signs of the transformed of furmankind, sometimes as discarded clothing that could never be worn again, or tufts of fur or animal hair shed unknowingly. The robotic rodents of the cleaning system sometimes found clumps too large or too dense to pick up, and typically the waldo had to be sent out to unclog them. Sometimes there were treasures to be found in the form of jewelry that had fallen from fingers or other human body parts that could no longer hold them. He had a nice collection of rings, piercings, antique timepieces and even some necklaces that he would eventually send down to the colonists on one of the shuttles while they were still running.

After near constant activity over the days since their arrival, most of the cargo bays had been emptied of its materiel, and once the last of it had been transferred to the surface camp, the shuttles would remain on site, to be used primarily as aerial transportation. Only then would the environmental and life support systems of Arion-1 be shut down completely, so the onboard SI could use its resources to monitor the planet below for new discoveries of a new world.

***

“According to analysis performed by my lander rovers in this crater and within the three others on this continent, these impacts were all made approximately twenty years ago. I cannot be specific to the exact time of impact, but it would be my conjecture that each were made within moments of one another. It seems that our original supposition may have been correct. Analyses have confirmed that each impact site contains the same elements as the others, so the conjecture is that it was a larger object that broke apart into separate meteorites during atmospheric entry.”

Ken Robeson looked up from the tablet with the SI’s face on its screen and across the galley tent table at Dr. Kate. “That’s awfully recent,” he said, crossing his arms. “Too fresh for my comfort.”

“That means it could happen again at any time,” said the lioness. “There are no other planets in this solar system orbiting between us and the asteroid belt to clear out the area and give us protection against them.”

“Craters investigated on the other continents are far older with greater environmental erosion,” Arion added. “This does not necessarily suggest a common occurrence, but does not rule it out altogether.”

Kate rested her elbows on the table with a cup of raspberry tea in her hands. “What about the contagion at Site One?”

“This is an unknown element so far, Dr. Kate. I am still performing analysis, but the chemical laboratory on board the rover is limited. I would have to launch a sample into orbit for a more in-depth investigation in a quarantined environment. This can only be accomplished once all personnel have evacuated Arion-1 following the completion of final transfer of cargo and livestock.”

“I still don’t like the thought of having alien material introduced on board the ship,” Ken remarked, “but if you can discover what this blight is, perhaps you can also find a way to stop it from spreading beyond its current location. I would hate to set up here only to have this stuff eventually take over the planet and force us to find another world to move to.”

“Agreed, Mayor Robeson. I will launch a sample within the hour.”

The cougar grinned. “I’m still not used to being called that. If you must be formal, you may call me Mr. Robeson, but we’ve known one another long enough that you can just call me Ken when we’re in an informal setting like this one.”

“As you wish, Your Honor.”

“You don’t have to call me that either.”

“Have we received any reports back from Joe?” Kate asked.

“Mr. Kittinger checked in an hour ago. He and his team have set up four of eight weather stations along the ridge rock, each to be placed at a specified compass point.”

“They should have had time to do them all. Why so few?” Ken asked.

“Mr. Kittinger cites difficulties in finding safe landing spots for the Flitter in the upper altitudes. They are not setting them at the tallest peaks, but still require locations they can reach.”

“That’s understandable. We need those stations installed, but not at the cost of safety.”

Kate looked into the depth of her wide-mouth tea mug and frowned when she saw the empty bottom. She set it on the table and looked around at the few other furmen seated around the room; there always seemed to be someone in the galley tent around the clock.

“Anything else to report?” she asked with a glance at her techwatch. “The construction team will be pouring the foundation of our first building soon and we need to be out there.”

“Yes, Dr. Kate. All but one set of the military dog tags have been distributed to colony personnel. After each batch of six sets came out of the fabrication units in the production tent, Mr. Bletchingdon made sure that each set was given to its owner; he has been unable to locate the final recipient.”

“Who is it?” Robeson asked.

“Ms. Whitney Marker.”

The cougar’s brow wrinkled. “That’s the girl traveling without her parents.”

“That’s right,” Kate responded. “Her family will arrive on Arion-2.”

“With everyone coming and going, it’s difficult to keep track of everyone. I don’t think I’ve met her since she came down to the surface. Arion, what was her species?”

“Bos taurus, a Texas Longhorn cattle hybrid.”

The felines exchanged glances. “Dr. Fernando told me about her,” Robeson murmured. “He said she was fairly suicidal when she discovered what she had become. His counseling session with her was especially difficult, and in the end he prescribed antidepressants for her.”

“I’ve met with each person when they transferred to the surface,” Kate said, “but I don’t recall talking with a heifer. Arion, do you have a record of her leaving the ship?”

“Negative, Dr. Kate. She has not been listed on any flight, including the cargo shuttles.”

“Is she still aboard your ship?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Robeson, but no personnel are currently on board Arion-1 that I can reference. The cargo team is presently on the surface for a twelve-hour break from duties that you authorized.”

“She must still be aboard, or someone neglected to list her on a flight down.”

“I regret that I do not have cameras or sensors in all parts of the ship, but I will review all recordings after she left the scanning compartment for clothing and fingerprinting. This was my only personal interaction with the young bovine.”

Robeson looked at the African lioness. “Do you think she might have committed suicide?”

Kate looked morose. “I hope not, but we won’t rule it out; this has been traumatic more for some than others. If Arion doesn’t find her before the cargo team returns to the ship, we may have to send up more personnel for a search party. In the meantime, we’ll have people looking for her throughout the camp. She may just be in hiding due to personal shame. We’ve had people upset with their transformations, but Whitney was hit the hardest of those who survived.”

“I am still reviewing the data,” Arion reported, “but I have ruled out suicide by airlock. None have been opened, not even the manual-operated emergency hatches. If she has not transferred to the surface, she must still be on board. Until you can send up more personnel to look for her, I will send my waldo into areas where I have no visibility.”

“The Kirato family will be returning to the ship when the shuttle truck returns. The corrals and paddocks are just about complete, so they will begin decanting the livestock in cryo, but I want them focused on that task. We’ll send others to help with the search if they’re needed.”

“As you wish, Mr. Mayor.”

“Okay, please stop calling me that.”

“Yes, Your Honor, sir.”

“That too.”

Arion emitted a quiet chuckle from the tablet and Kate looked amused. She consulted her techwatch again and stood up from her chair, making sure her tail did not tangle with the back supports. “Time to head to the construction site. We have to get that foundation started before the next rain showers.”

Robeson picked up his tablet as he got to his feet, but shook his head. “I’ll let you go officiate with that,” he said. “I need to have a discussion with the Bonavitas.”

The lioness raised an eyebrow. “I don’t envy that conversation,” she scoffed. “Good luck!”

Leaving her tea mug on the table, she dropped to all fours and padded away to the sunlight outside. Robeson retrieved their dishes, put them away in a plastic wash tub on a nearby table, and then heaved a mental sigh. He did not see the embryonic specialists in the galley tent, but he had a good idea where they might be.

The production tent was another large pavilion that held the manufacturing printers and the assorted materials they needed for operation, and although the first permanent structure had yet to be built, there were a number of those in the colony who had been using the printers to craft items to personalize their temporary shelters. The Bonavita family had been seen within the tent on numerous occasions, and he had no trouble finding them inside.

The brown bear and her feline husband looked up in unison when they noticed the cougar walking toward them. “Hello, Your Honor,” Angelo said in greeting. Robeson got the impression that the words had been spoken in derision, but he decided to ignore it.

“Hello, Angelo. Emma. How are you two doing?”

“We’re surviving,” said the ursine woman who refused to be referred to as a sow. “We’re just trying to make ourselves comfortable for the time we’re here.”

“Have you come to say we’re leaving this awful place or that you’ve found a cure for our conditions?” Angelo asked in a slightly raised voice, his eyes refocused on whatever it was the manufacturing printer was working on beside him; it was faster than earlier 3D printers, but as a result it tended to be rather noisy.

“Neither,” said the colony leader. “It’s time for the two of you to put your skills to work.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“All of the freezer storage units have been brought down from orbit and set up on power units inside a large tent on the other end of camp. The corrals and stockades are about finished and the Kiratos will return to the ship in a few hours to begin decanting the livestock in cryo. As they ship live animals down on the shuttle trucks, you’ll need to set up a schedule to implant embryos to initiate full pregnancies.”

“Why should we bother?” Emma scoffed. “You aren’t making enough of an effort to find a way to get us back to Earth, but that should be your highest priority! There’s no need to impregnate the livestock if we aren’t staying.”

“Where did you get the impression that we’re leaving Bellerophon?” Robeson responded, trying to keep his hackles down. “We’ve told you time and again that we are staying right here!”

Emma looked at the feline, set her jaw and then sat back on her haunches. “We refuse,” she stated defiantly.

“Refuse?”

“We aren’t going to touch a single embryo. If you don’t have fresh livestock, you’ll have no choice than to go back!”

“How many times will I have to repeat this? We are not going back to Earth. We can’t! Ever! We don’t have the means, nor do we have the intention of even trying! We came to Bellerophon for a purpose and that hasn’t changed! Our mission stands.”

Angelo sat on the ground beside his wife and crossed his arms. “We refuse,” he echoed what the bear had said. “End of discussion.”

Robeson drew himself up to his full height and glared down at them. “So be it,” he said tightly. “If you do not work, you do not eat. I will inform Rocky right away that neither of you are to be provided any food stock meant for working colonists, since you hate this place so much.”

“What?” both exclaimed in unison.

The cougar made a show of snapping his fingers, even if they did not make the desired sound. “In fact…” he said, “if you wish, I can even have a pilot take a Flitter and transfer the two of you to any other place on the globe that you would like to live out your lives away from this camp you so detest; I can even let you take a tent with a couple of days of provisions, but we can’t spare more than that. You won’t ever be allowed back up on the ship, so get it through your thick heads that Arion-1 will be making no interstellar voyages ever again. You’re here to stay – whether it’s working with the rest of us, or living off by yourselves!”

Angelo got to his feet. “Now, let’s not be hasty,” he said in a softer tone. “We didn’t say we wouldn’t work around the camp. We’ll do whatever else is needed, but we won’t touch any of the embryos. There’s no need to exile us for that!”

Robeson suddenly felt vindictive. “If you stay but refuse to do your assigned jobs, be prepared to do all the menial tasks we can think up for you around camp. You will have to earn your meals. In the meantime, I’m sure Piale would be happy to accept responsibility for your jobs. From what I’ve been told, she may be young, but she has the necessary capabilities to implant the embryos, and I can get two or three others in similar fields to work with her on this assignment.”

“Piale!” exclaimed Emma. “She can’t handle that kind of obligation!”

“I’m sure she’ll step up to the job. She’s already told us several times that she’s willing to do anything necessary to support this colony, which is more than I can say for her parents. I think it’s time she’s given a role of responsibility.”

“You can’t do that!”

“Why not? The only embryonic specialists we have are refusing to do their jobs. Sure, we have some farmers and ranchers among us who probably have experience with husbandry, but Piale is a specialist and will be put in charge of this necessary operation.” Before either of the Bonavitas could gripe further, he held out a hand toward them. “The only alternative is for you to accept responsibility and fulfill the duties you came here for.”

The mismatched married couple fell silent, but they exchanged looks for several moments before either looked back at the cougar.

“No,” Emma said. “We’ll do whatever nasty jobs you make us do, and I’m sure you’ll do what you can to punish us, but we will not touch one embryo. Piale doesn’t have what it takes and will fail at this task; in time, you’ll see that we’re right and that we need to leave this place as soon as we can.”

“What is wrong with you two?” Robeson asked incredulously. “Every person here volunteered for this one-way mission, and that included you and your signatures on legal documents! Why in blazes did you even come here for? Tell me that!”

“We wanted to make a new life and give humanity a chance to survive should anything ever happen to the Earth,” Emma answered, giving the textbook reply.

“We can’t do that now,” Angelo added, holding out his feline hands. “We aren’t human anymore, so how can humanity ‘live on’ here? If we return to Earth, someone else can come out here in a better protected ship and take our places to represent humanity.”

Robeson visibly deflated. “I understand, but you still don’t get it. How many different ways can I say this? Our ship was designed for a one-way trip out here. It just isn’t capable of making a return flight, and we have nothing here that would change that fact.”

Remembering something that Dr. Kazama had said, he added, “Even if we had the means, it would be a round trip of over a century and a half by the time we got back. It’s already been almost seventy-six years since we left and most everyone will have already forgotten us, tagged us as nothing more than a footnote in the history texts. If we returned looking like we do now, what do you think would happen to us?”

“Maybe they could find a cure,” Emma ventured.

“It’s doubtful, since no one on Earth would have ever experienced this either. In all likelihood, a ship full of talking animals that showed up in orbit would probably be seen as an alien invasion before we could even get them to believe that we were once human. I doubt they would even let us land and explain.”

“We don’t know that they would react that way,” Angelo said. “We need to give it a try.”

“How? We don’t have the fuel and we don’t have the necessary cryo resources for another seventy-six year journey. Even if we can’t go back to Earth in cryo suspension, we have neither the room for everyone, nor enough food and air to last such a trip with us all up and about. Not counting the years I spent asleep, I’m forty-seven years old. If I did not go back in cryo, I would be around one hundred twenty-two years old by the time we got back to Earth, providing that I even lived that long. How about yourselves? If we did manage to survive the long voyage, what kind of a life would we have at that age, whether we were animal or fully human? Those of us still alive would be getting back in time to die of old age.”

“That can’t be true,” Emma muttered. “There has to be a way to replenish our fuel and cryo resources so we can go back. Maybe that’s what we should be doing now — trying to find local elements we can use to make what we need.”

Robeson shook his head. “We have no one with that kind of experience among us. Those skills were not deemed necessary to start a new colony on another world.”

“What about Arion?” Angelo asked. “He’s supposed to be a repository of all human knowledge. Are you saying that he can’t teach us to make what we need to go back home?”

The cougar looked thoughtful, but only for a moment. “I admit that could be a consideration, but you two are the only ones among us who have any desire to go back to Earth, so we aren’t going to expend our efforts to send you back alone. No, I’m sorry. We’re all here to stay.”

The expression on the face of the bear hardened again. “In that case, our decision stands. If you’re going to strand us here, we have no intention of implanting a single embryo. If we can’t leave, and you aren’t going to look for a cure, there’s no need for us to survive. We don’t represent humanity anymore. We don’t belong here.”

Robeson pulled up his tablet. “Arion?”

“Still here, Your Honor.”

“Please lock out the fabrication units to Angelo and Emma Bonavita. They won’t be using them anymore.” The machine in production promptly fell silent, its instructions cut off.

“Done.”

Robeson narrowed his eyes at the two before him. “Report to Mr. Andresen immediately. I will provide him with a list of chores to keep you occupied before I inform your daughter of her promotion.”

Chapter Sixteen

Something in the Dark

The air was heavy with moisture, but the daily rains had stopped hours earlier. The sun was setting behind the high ridge rock of the crater, and although there were clouds in the air, they had broken up enough for the overhead stars to begin peeking through the purpling atmosphere.

One of the four gates that opened out through the tall perimeter fence nearest the center lake swung open on hinges that squeaked quietly, and two mismatched figures stepped through to the outside once the proper code had been entered onto a weatherproof lock pad. Crater weed softened their steps, but they were not trying to be covert.

The male form was a white-wooled sheep with black spots, and although in his human-age twenties, the ram’s curved charcoal-gray horns were not yet fully developed. He held out a human-like hand with shortened fingers and hoof-tough nails to the female gray wolf at his side; she grasped it in one of her similar-looking, claw-tipped hands.

Ginger closed and relocked the Lake Gate behind them, and then the couple walked hand-in-hand toward the nearby lake shore. When they stepped out onto wet sand at the water’s edge, Barry looked over at his girlfriend and frowned. In the waning light, he could see moisture rimming the woman’s eyes.

“What’s the matter?” he asked quietly, stopping to face her. “Have you changed your mind?”

The wolf shook her head, but rubbed at her eyes. “No,” she muttered, “but I’ve had a growing sinus headache all day. I may be allergic to something local.”

“You have a headache.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, really.”

“Okay, then. Can you breathe okay?”

“Just a little congestion, but it’s mostly sinus pressure.” She looked at him with a tired smile and shrugged. “I’ll probably be fine once we’re in the water, swimming and collecting your plant samples.”

Barry finally gave her one of his boyish grins, one that had endeared him to her even when he was fully human, and without taking his eyes off of her, he hooked his thumbs beneath the waistband of his shorts. Her gaze followed his movements as he pulled them down and then stepped out of the garment, his stubby tail not needing a separate opening in the back. She waited patiently, but made no move to do more than study his new form. Despite that he was a completely different species than her, even his changed body appealed to her.

The ram boldly reached up and pulled at the elastic holding her pleated tube top in place. He pulled them up over her head slowly, savoring the sight of her furry chest for a moment, and then dropped the garment to the ground on top of his. He reached for her shorts then pulled them down to her hips. He had to reach around her to unfasten the small strap across the top of her tail, and then finished the job, leaving their clothing on the ground at their feet. Within a moment, they were both bare in what their new natures had given them.

Barry held out his hand and with just a momentary hesitation, she took it and allowed him to lead her to the water’s edge. They waded into a sun-warmed lake, and although the daylight was dwindling fast, the water had retained its comfortable temperature.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Ginger asked. The survivalist would normally have no fear of the lake water, but they were on a different world with its own rules and life forms.

“Arion reported nothing more than tiny krill-like creatures and Dom’s already caught and examined several of them.”

“Dom?”

“Dominic Silvanus, one of our biologists, now a raccoon. He said the little swimmers have no teeth, no stingers and nothing toxic in them. All they do is eat the water vegetation and leave nutrients in the water.”

“How do they eat without teeth?”

“He explained it to me, but I’m a hydroponics botanist, not a biologist. They have a pair of thin bony ridges that can tear off tiny bits of plants to ingest, but they aren’t strong enough to pierce a human’s skin — or the hide of anything we’ve turned into. Just know that they’re nothing for us to be afraid of, and Arion detected nothing larger swimming in this lake.

“Just because he hasn’t detected something doesn’t mean it’s not there.”

“True, but I think we’ll be fine.” The ram pulled her further into the water until it was waist deep. The muddy bottom was firm beneath their feet with only a gentle slope.

The wolf swished her tail slowly back and forth within the water, but hugged herself as if she were cold.

“Barry,” she said with hesitation. “I don’t think I feel up to this. My head is throbbing. I think I need to go back and lie down.”

“Okay, we can go back.”

She put a hand on his chest. “No, I can make my way back. You can stay and collect your soggy plants. We’ll come back and frolic in the water later.”

“Promise?”

She leaned forward and slipped her arms up around his neck. She kissed him deeply and then pulled back to look into his dark eyes. “I promise to make it worth the wait. Go ahead and get your plants. I’ll see if Dr. Kazama has something for my sinuses and then I’m going straight to my bed. I will see you in the morning for breakfast.”

“Okay,” the ram said, disappointment in his voice. “Good night.”

The overhead Milky Way stood out brilliantly in the night sky, the myriad of stars casting enough illumination that he could admire her lupine figure as she waded back up to shore. When she reached dry land, she bent over to wring water from her leg fur, and she looked back at him with a tired smile. She raised her tail for him as she retrieved her clothing, and chuckled softly at his mesmerized expression.

Then she faded away into the darkness toward the camp lights. Barry stood in the water until he heard the faint squeak of the gate hinge, and then he waded back to where it was only thigh-deep. Before they had lost daylight completely, he had seen some of the bosom plants he had heard about, not far from where they had entered the lake.

He reached a small cluster of them bobbing gently in the water and was about to reach for one when he heard the squeak of the gate. Had she changed her mind?

He looked in that direction, but did not see her. Perhaps the wolf was going to play-stalk him and he smiled at the thought. The bosom water plant forgotten, he waded back to dry land, but then he heard a noise above him. Instinctively, he looked up and saw something occlude the stars as it passed overhead. He ducked and knelt simultaneously, but nothing swooped down at him. Whatever it was, it had only passed by and continued on its way.

When he stood up again and looked toward the camp lights, he saw a silhouette creeping toward him. He had feared an alien creature for a brief moment, but the bipedal shape with pointed ears on top made him smile foolishly.

“Hey, Ginger,” he said. “I’m glad you came back.”

What responded to him was not the wolf’s voice, but a low growl. The ram’s eyes widened in sudden prey response and without thinking, he started looking around for a way to escape. With the camp lights behind it, Barry could see no eyes or other details, just the indistinct shape as it dropped onto all fours.

“N-now, G-ginger,” he stammered, “don’t do that to me. If y-you want me to walk back with you, that’s f-fine. I can get the w-water plants later.”

He gave one of his smiles to show he was not upset, but when he got closer, a different scent reached his senses just as the figure leapt for him. It was not Ginger, and he let out a bleat that was quickly cut short.

***

Later the next morning, the camp’s white anthro-fox sat back on her haunches beside a sedated goat, her tail splayed out on the ground behind her. The vixen was half-human, although the goat was a fully decanted animal shipped down from the orbiting ship with a small herd of others. With the assistance of two helpers and a medical x-ray tablet, Piale had successfully implanted a thawed embryo into the ewe’s uterus, and everything seemed to go well for this first attempt.

Rex Bletchingdon handed her a wet towel to wipe off her hands and looked over at Nick Ansara, who gently held the goat’s head against his thigh.

“Nicely done,” said the tan Labrador retriever, patting her furry knee. “Just keep your head and don’t be in a hurry, and the rest you do will be as successful.

“I couldn’t have done it better myself,” Nick added his personal praise, the horseman lightly stroking the nanny goat’s neck. It would take the animal a while yet to come out of sedation, but she had done just fine throughout the experience. “You have capable hands.”

Unnoticed and watching from several yards away, a brown bear and a lynx had their heads together. Emma looked insulted, but Angelo seemed merely passive.

“You have to admit that she did it,” the lynx whispered.

“I don’t have to admit any such thing! She had to have help and take instructions from those two animals!”

“Yes, but that’s how she learns.”

“It didn’t need to be two males fawning over her!”

Angelo sighed inwardly, fully regretting the ultimatum his wife had made him give to Robeson. “Yes,” he agreed, “that should have been us working with her, but we stood by our decision. That’s no longer our responsibility.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. “What are you not saying?”

The lynx looked up at the bear and met her gaze without flinching. He leveled a hand and gestured toward their daughter. The white fox was preparing a sedative for the next ewe to be implanted with a thawed embryo and the horseman picked up another goat from the back of a work truck.

“We challenged Robeson’s decision to stay here and it backfired,” he grumbled. “We refused to do our duties and he simply got someone else without making any concessions about returning to Earth. Even if he hadn’t tasked Piale, he would have given it to either of those guys anyway since they have the experience. Our hand was weak and he knew it.”

Emma put her hands on her hips. “Are you proposing we tuck our tails and ask for our jobs back?”

“Precisely that.”

“Coward.”

“No, I’m practical. You’ve always said so yourself.”

“I don’t want to stay here! We have to find a way to force them to take us back!”

Angelo glared at her. “It’s not going to happen. We aren’t going back to Earth and it’s unlikely we’ll ever get back to normal, so we may as well as try to make the best of it as everyone else is trying to do!”

“I don’t think you ever wanted to go back. You only agreed with me to keep me on your side!”

Angelo snorted. “We aren’t doing this, Emma!” he shot back with a growl. Without another word of argument, he turned his tail to her and walked away to let her sulk, going straight to where his daughter was working.

The young vixen looked at him in surprise when he settled onto the ground beside her. “Hey little fox,” he said in a light tone. “Could you use some more help?”

She blinked and looked at Nick and then Rex. “Uh, sure,” she replied.

The lynx shifted his gaze to the two males and gave them a friendly smile. “I appreciate the assistance you’ve given her.”

“It’s no trouble at all,” replied the horseman. The previous ewe was still lethargic, but the trio had moved the next goat a few paces away to repeat the process. Nick held another ewe with a strong arm gently across her chest and she looked at the lynx passively. “Would you like to take over? I have other things I could be doing.”

Angelo nodded. “Yes, I would appreciate it.”

“Do you still need me?” Rex asked quietly.

“Of course!” Piale said with a grin. “It’s easier with three.”

“I can be your third, if you will let me,” said another voice. Everyone peered up at Emma, who looked sheepish despite her ursine countenance. Rex exchanged looks with the fox and then grinned.

“It looks like everything’s under control,” he said, wagging his tail behind him. He got to his feet and then looked over at Nick. “C’mon, I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Thanks, guys!” Piale said with a smile of her own. “I really needed your help for my first time and I owe you. It was great!”

Rex laughed aloud. “Let us know if you need any more help having sex with the animals!”

Nick jabbed an elbow into the canine’s side for the comment, Angelo looked surprised and Emma appeared absolutely scandalized.

Piale yipped aloud and pointed a clawed finger at him, obviously pleased with the risqué dialogue. “I’ll remember that!”

Rex and Nick waved and walked away, while Angelo and Emma took up positions around the goat.

The bear reached for the cooler of thawed embryos, though did not open its seal just yet. “Vulgar…” she muttered beneath her breath. Then she looked over at her daughter and gave her a look of embarrassment. “We’re sorry, Piale. We shirked our responsibilities and you got saddled with our work.”

“Thanks, Mom,” the fox put a hand on the bear’s arm. “I don’t mind the work, but I would be happy if the three of us did this together.”

“Do you want one of us to take over the transfer rod?” Angelo asked. “After all, we both have a lot of experience with this sort of thing.”

“Actually, I want that kind of experience too, but if I get tired, I won’t hesitate to ask either of you to take the driver’s seat.”

“As you wish,” he answered. “Now, what you did before worked, but there’s a way to make it easier on yourself if you don’t mind a little instruction.”

“Not at all!”

None of those involved with the embryo implantation efforts noticed the cougar standing just beyond the bed of the work truck containing more ewes. Ken Robeson nodded his approval at the turn of events. He had kept a covert eye on the Bonavitas, and although it had not been his plan to push them toward their duties, he was surprised that they had come around on their own – at least for now.

With a private smile, he dropped to all fours and slipped away quietly.

***

Near the runway was a long row of shipping containers that had been brought down from the ship and lined up beside one another. There were still more to be brought down, even though the shuttle trucks could transport six at a time, and since very few of them had been emptied as yet, the area had become known as the ‘supply depot’.

One of the containers was open on one end and two Furs were inside making a quiet inventory. “I found them,” said one of them. “Two crates holding three dozen solar charged night lamps in each.”

Dr. Kate looked up from the manifest on her tablet at the slender red panda and nodded. “Thank you, Jessica. We’ll need to distribute those to the sleeping tents.”

“How do you use solar powered lamps at night?”

Kate laughed and put away her tablet to help pull the crates toward the door. “Set it outside your door to charge during the day, put it on your night stand when it gets dark out, and turn it on or off as needed.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”

One of the work trucks pulled up outside as they manhandled the first crate out into the hot sunlight toward the vehicle. “Good timing,” Jessica remarked.

The canine Rex poked his head out of the open window. “Dr. Kate!” he exclaimed. “I was sent out to get you. We have a situation!”

The women set the crate in the back of his truck and then both approached the tan Labrador. “What’s going on?” Kate asked.

“We have a missing sheep,” Rex replied.

“It’s probably wandered off between the tents,” the African lioness said dryly. “You don’t need me for that search party.”

“No, the sheep is Barry Sandon, our hydroponics officer. No one’s seen him since last night, and they’ve already searched all the tents for him.”

Kate spoke toward her techwatch. “Arion, has Mr. Sandon returned to the ship on one of the shuttles?”

“Negative, Dr. Kate. The only personnel currently on board are Haru and Emiko Kirato, presently decanting chickens, and chef Rocky is taking inventory of MREs prior to sending them down to the camp. War Admiral is scheduled to launch the cargo crew from the surface in forty-eight minutes.”

Kate tilted her head slightly. “Where’s their toddler? I thought Emiko keeps him with her at all times. Is he with Takuma?”

“Jeanette Colton is currently babysitting Daisuke Kirato, Kimmy Colton and Dale Weathers, while Takuma Kirato, Dean Ruston and Carson Weathers are constructing a playground for the children in the area set aside to be a public park out near the Lake Gate.”

“Thank you, Arion.” The lioness looked at the canine. “Who was the last one to see Mr. Sandon?”

Rex shook his head. “I don’t know the answer to that. I was just tasked to find you and take you back to camp headquarters.”

Jessica nudged Kate’s shoulder. “You go on,” she said. “I can continue here by myself.”

“I’ll come back out and help once she’s where she needs to be,” Rex volunteered, the tip of his tail tapping the seat beside him.

The red panda patted the canine on the cheek gently while Kate moved around the vehicle to climb in. “Thank you,” she said to the farming dog. “Bring some water bottles back with you.”

“I will, but you can have this one.” He handed her one that had been sweating in a cup holder. “It’s been opened, but I promise you won’t catch anything from me.”

The nurse smiled and patted his cheek. “Are you trying to give me an indirect kiss?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “If you are, you’ll have to work harder than that.”

Rex grinned. “Take it however you will.” He gave her a wink and then made sure the lioness was belted in beside him. Jessica stepped back from the vehicle and then he put it in motion.

The truck took off along the tracks worn across the crater weed back to camp, and the red panda returned to the relatively cool shade just inside the shipping container. She found her own tablet sitting on a box near the door and she tapped the screen.

“Hello, Arion. Would you transfer a copy of the manifest that Kate was working from to my tablet?”

“Done. Ms. Heald. I have included her notes and checkmarks.”

“Thank you.”

***

Ginger sat on a backless stool, her hands in her lap and her furry tail hanging low to the ground. She did not look at any of the Furs that stood in front of her, her expression one of shame.

“We slipped out through the Lake Gate late last night,” the lupine woman confessed in a quiet voice. “Barry wanted to collect some of the lake vegetation to examine, but that was only an excuse for us to fool around in the water.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” Ken Robeson remarked. “This isn’t a prison camp and you aren’t forbidden from private meet-ups.” He glanced over at Kate, who met his eyes only briefly.

“I’d had a sinus headache most of the night,” the gray wolf continued, “so I bowed out and went back to camp.” She looked up and shrugged. “He probably thought I was just using the old headache excuse, but I really did have one. He stayed behind to collect his water plants and I came back to camp.”

Dr. Kazama nodded. “She came to me for sinus medication, which I dispensed with a cup of water and instructions to get some rest.”

“I haven’t seen Barry since then,” Ginger continued. “I went right to bed and slept until the sunup this morning. I went to find him for breakfast, but the bed in his tent hadn’t been slept in.”

“Since you bowed out with a headache,” Andresen ventured, “do you suppose he found someone else to snuggle up to during the night?” Kate shot a glare at the engineer for his supposition, but Will ignored her.

“That actually crossed my mind,” Ginger admitted with a shrug, “but no one I’ve talked to has seen him this morning.”

Ken looked around the small group. “We did a casual search of all the tents – sleeping tents, galley, fabrication, etc. As she said, no one can recall seeing him today. His spotted, white wool stands out in the sunlight, so I would have thought someone would have remembered seeing him.”

Ginger looked up for the first time since the query had begun. “Do you think something in the lake might have gotten him?” Her voice cracked with the emotion in her question.

Kate spoke toward her techwatch. “Arion, please send a sensor drone to the lake and start looking for Mr. Sandon, in the water and on the shore. We’ll head out there shortly to put eyes on the situation too.”

“I have scanned the lake multiple times since our landing, Dr. Kate,” said the SI’s voice. “At no time have I detected any large life forms in the water. The lake has an average depth of twenty-one feet with the deepest point only thirty-six feet in depth, and a central underwater plateau ten feet below the surface.”

“When was your last scan?”

“Three days ago, Dr. Kate.”

“He might have slipped on algae and fell in,” Andresen suggested. “He could have hit his head or gotten tangled in water weeds.”

Kate glared at the engineer again and saw Ginger stiffen at his words. Although Will was a red wolf and Ginger was a gray, they had never shown any attraction with one another. Barry and Ginger had been an item before they had left Earth and they had continued their relationship even after discovering their new physical natures. Kate suppressed the idea that Andresen was actively trying to distance the two of them so he might have a chance with the she-wolf.

“Arion, please look again,” she directed at her techwatch. “You might find Barry from the air before we can get there to conduct a search.”

“A fully-charged sensor rover is launching from the camp now.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

Without waiting on anyone, the lioness turned and walked out of the tent. The others followed her to one of the work trucks and everyone found a place inside, including the gray wolf, who took the shotgun seat next to Kate.

Dr. Kazama tapped on the truck door. “I am heading back up to the ship with the cargo crew to check on some meds that I have processing on board. We’ll be leaving in about fifteen minutes, so I must get out to the runway. I’ll keep an eye out for Barry, just in case he made it up there. You can grab Jessica if anything medical comes up while I am away.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

As the truck headed out toward the lake, Ginger wrung her hands together. “He has ram’s horns,” she reminded the lioness, “but he hasn’t considered them defensive weapons. They’ve been more of an annoyance, always framing his field of vision.”

“I’m sure he would use them if a predator tried to attack him,” Kate said soothingly. “Barry is a practical guy, and even if he’s never been a fighter, his baser animal instincts would kick in. A lot of us have been discovering such instincts and I’m sure he would be no different.”

***

“Doc, can you come to cargo bin A133-065? I am including a map on your tablet to get here.”

“I can, Ethan, but I am involved in something. Can it wait?”

“I will leave that up to you. We’ve found a large smear of blood across an out-of-the-way storage bin.”

“I am on my way.”

“Aye, Doc. Thanks.”

***

Kate rubbed her eyes and then rubbed her throat, trying hard to suppress her emotions. Ever since her transformation, her thoughts and feelings got out more than they ever had when she was fully human. There were times in recent days when she really wished she was still as firm and stoic as she used to be.

Her techwatch chirped at her and she tapped the near screen automatically. “This is Dr. Kate.”

“This is Dr. Kazama. We’ve made a terrible discovery here on board the ship.”

The lioness made an inarticulate sound, her throat constricting again.

“Dr. Kate?”

“I’m here, Kazama. We’ve just discovered Barry Sandon’s body and it’s pretty grisly. It looks like a predator killed him and had a feast, so you’ll need to do an autopsy when you get back down here. Jessica said she’s not qualified to do that.”

“Sandon – that’s the sheep ram, isn’t he? I hate to tell you, but we’ve made a similar discovery here as well.”

Kate looked over at Ginger Martin, who was on all fours, retching into the lake water several paces away. She lowered her voice and rubbed her throat again, trying to entice her words into the techwatch.

“What’s happened there?”

“Ethan found a smear of blood on a storage bin door panel, but none of the personnel up here have been injured. I checked it with my med kit and the blood matches what we have on file post-transformation for Whitney Marker.”

“Oh no…”

“We did a search of the area and found some equipment scattered haphazardly in an aisle, and when we checked a sealed trunk where the equipment was supposed to be stowed, we found the girl’s body. Her throat was torn out and her body was partially eaten, but so far I have been unable to discover what’s done this to her. Arion has no cameras in that area, so he has no record of the incident.”

“Oh, that makes me sick,” Kate murmured. “We found almost the same thing here. Barry was reported missing this morning and we did a search in the last place he’d been seen out by the lake. We don’t know what got a hold of him, but his throat was torn out and he’s been partially eaten. We found his body covered over with crater weeds, as if whatever did it was trying to hide him – or save what was left for later.”

“If it was just him, I would have suspected a local predator we’ve not yet encountered, but with almost a mirror incident on board the ship, I would have to conjecture it has to be one of our own predators.”

The lioness was quiet a moment before she said, “I really hate to admit it, but I’m inclined to agree with you.”

“Most of my medical equipment has already been transferred to the surface, but I still have duplicate capabilities here for a full autopsy. I will examine Ms. Marker’s body closely and see if there’s anything present that I can identify to make a match.”

“Do we need to transport Barry up to you there?”

“No, I can examine him when I am finished here and can return to camp. Once I have sufficient information to make an educated guess, I will contact you right away. Arion, please log these two personnel as confirmed RIPs. When I return to Belle, I will bring Ms. Marker down with me.”

“It has been logged, Dr. Kazama.”

“How has the crew on board reacted to this?” Kate asked.

“Mostly shock and numbness, but I haven’t informed Rocky or the Kiratos yet.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

Kazama lowered his voice. “With the exception of Haru, Emiko, Rocky and myself, everyone else up here is a predator, but I won’t voice any suspicions until I have more to go on.”

“I understand. Please keep me apprised of what you find out.”

“Certainly, Dr. Kate.”

Chapter Seventeen

The Rift

With the crater’s rocky peaks behind them, Flitter-2 was casually flying eastward across the horizontal forest of down-blasted trees, and it seemed to be an endless sea of wooden toothpicks from the altitude of the aircraft.

Henry Clifton dropped their elevation to allow his current survey team to see the landscape below in better detail. Since he was not ferrying personnel back and forth between the ship and the camp much anymore, the cheetah was making more reconnaissance flights in one of the two Flitters that had been brought down to the surface.

Dean Ruston poked his head into the cockpit area of the Flitter and pointed out something through the forward window.

“There’s a place that might be large enough for Omaha to land vertically for more firewood,” said the husky, “but you’re a better judge of where your shuttle plane can fit.”

Henry nodded and altered course to check out the indicated clearing. Dean returned to the passenger area and sat down near the two women who had come along. Ginger Martin was still mourning Barry’s death, but she had requested this assignment so she could focus on something other than work in the camp for the day. Although she and Dean had never been a couple, they were frequently assigned jobs together due to their similar skills and upbringings and they usually got along well. Victoria Barbicane had become friends with Ginger back on the El-Five station, so chef Rocky had allowed her to volunteer to come along to provide emotional support for the gray wolf if needed; she also enjoyed a good outing into the unknown.

They all watched through the windows as the Flitter approached the clearing that Dean had pointed out, but after hovering for only a moment, Henry decided that although the Flitter could set down okay, it would be just a little too snug for the larger VTOL shuttle plane to land in.

The Flitter rose back up to a hundred feet above the horizontal forest and headed out further away from the crater. Clearings between downed trees were numerous, but were rarely more than a few feet across. It would be difficult to get Omaha into them so they could bring back more firewood than the Flitter itself had room for.

Rather than meander around in a random pattern, Henry chose a flight path to continue due east. Winds were light and although there was a haze of moisture in the air, the weather was decent for flying. The continent’s perpetual rainforest was up ahead and the cheetah headed right for it without making a conscious decision to do so.

The tree canopy of the forest rose up almost to the height that they were flying, so Henry added altitude to stay above them. When they left the dead, horizontal trees behind, the vista changed to a virtual green carpet growing out over gently undulating hills as far as the eye could see. Instruments reported a rise in local temperatures, water vapor and humidity, and the furmen began to see numerous varieties of flying creatures. These were analogous to birds, but they had all developed on their own lines and very little about them was familiar. The various colors reflected across the full spectrum of a rainbow, and there were so many different shapes and sizes that biologists would be cataloging avian wildlife of the rainforest for years to come.

Suddenly, there was a break up ahead in the canopy, so Henry made a direct line to it. Before he had even reached it, however, he knew it would be large enough to land in, though it was far from the horizontal firewood they were scouting for. When he slipped in over the clearing, he saw why there were no trees growing there.

Far below the canopy was an immense hole in the ground. It looked as if a massive sinkhole had simply collapsed beneath the forest floor, but it looked old, ancient and overgrown, as if it had fallen in ages ago.

Unable to land there, Henry deployed an electronic marker beacon from the belly of the Flitter so it could be relocated again as a place of interest. The markers had been included since Kittinger’s earlier reconnaissance flight out for firewood. The hand-sized device dropped into the depths of the hole on a small parachute and even the marker’s red blinking light was lost to view.

“Arion, are you tracking the beacon?”

“Affirmative, Mr. Clifton.”

“I wasn’t sure you could receive it as far down as it dropped.”

“No loss of signal. It is resting at a depth of twenty-three yards below the surface.”

“That’s a deep hole.”

Rather than continue on over the rainforest, Henry circled back toward the horizontal trees. The presence of the tiltrotor aircraft had stirred up the avian wildlife so he had to take it slow so as not to fly right through flocks of the creatures. He gave them all time to move out of his flight path, though some of them were slow to do so. This was the most native life any of them had seen since their arrival. There just did not seem to be much activity in the crater itself other than the invaders from Earth that had moved in.

They flew for another twenty minutes before Victoria called out that she had seen a likely place off the starboard side of the flyer, very near where the fallen trees met up with the standing forest. There was a basalt hillock sticking up from beneath the end of the blasted trees that pushed out a bluff; it had formed some fortification from the blast of the meteorite impact. On the eastern side of this dense rocky outcrop was a protected meadow surrounded on two sides by piles of natural lumber and the other end by the rainforest. Henry’s keen eye knew this spot was more than large enough to drop Omaha straight down to ground level.

He set the Flitter’s tires onto a glade of grasses and flowers, blowing away a multitude of attendant insects with his fans. The ground beneath was firm and held the weight of the craft. Sure that his flyer would not fall into another sinkhole, the cheetah cut power to the engines and allowed everything to quiet down while he studied the conditions outside the vehicle.

Ginger and Victoria peered out through the same window together, pointing out colorful bird-like creatures that quickly moved back into the area, apparently undaunted by the presence of the tiltrotor flying machine that now resided in their domain.

Dean had been part of the last team that had gone out like this with Joe Kittinger on the Flitter-1 so he had already settled into his seat to await the five-minute down time while the pilot made sure everything outside was copasetic. While the women watched the birds, the canine husky watched the women, silently comparing the fluffiness of their tails.

Upon exiting the flyer moments later, Victoria walked straight to where the rainforest began, completely ignoring the dried firewood they had come to scout; Ginger followed close behind with caution. Both were outdoorsy types and Victoria was an accomplished survivalist, and each had a rifle slung over their shoulder in case they met up with anything that objected to their intrusion.

Dean had strapped on a holster with a revolver for his protection, but he hefted a chainsaw toward one of the massive fallen trees. Henry emerged from the aircraft with his own and walked to a different tree. Within moments, both were methodically cutting out chunks of firewood to take back, filling the air with shavings, dust and noise.

As the females stepped out of the sunlight into the perpetual shade beneath the canopy, the gray wolf raised her techwatch to her lips. “Arion, this is Ginger. Has Henry reported our position?” She had to speak in a louder tone to make herself heard over the wood cutting.

“Yes, Ms. Martin. I am monitoring your progress.”

“Victoria and I have stepped from the clearing where we have landed, under the tree line.”

“Can you describe one of the trees, please?”

“The tall trees that create the canopy look about thirty or more yards tall. They have a rough bark and branches that spread out with something like leaves.”

“Something like leaves?” Arion repeated. “Can you explain why you phrased it like that?”

The wolf chuckled. “These things are not like the trees I know from Earth, but they are definitely tree-ish.” She leaned in close to a huge trunk and examined it closer. “The bark appears to have metallic flake embedded all through it in veins. There’s a light breeze blowing up higher where the leaves are, and those seem to clap in halves, as if they were tiny books opening and closing. The root system spreads out, in and out of the ground, and it almost looks like they interconnect with the other trees around them. It would take a botanist to discover more.”

Mentioning a botanist made her think of Barry, and she felt a lump rise in her throat, but she swallowed hard and tried to put him out of her mind. She looked around the area at ground level and continued her report. Victoria had progressed farther into the shadows, her rifle now out and held at the ready as she investigated some of the sparse underbrush.

“Most of other vegetation seems to be high up in the trees in a symbiotic relationship with them. There’s not much down here where we are, just some random undergrowth that’s not very thick. I don’t suppose much sunlight ever gets down this far.”

“Describe the undergrowth.”

“Gnarled bushes growing around randomly, globular in shape with tiny leafy coverage and some kind of berry or fruit growing on them. Some of the bird-creatures are in and out of them, so I would suspect nesting inside their food source. Victoria’s checking one out now. Nothing in the way of grasses on the ground, just a lot of dirt and detritus.”

“Be sure to collect samples of the berry fruit for Dr. Manhigh, along with the book-leaves if you can get any. Describe the avian creatures.”

Ginger shook her head and swished her tail. “There’s too many to detail,” she said. “A few on the ground, many more up in the trees. All colors and numerous shapes. Some would fit in my hand, others as large as turkeys, only these can fly. The smaller creatures typically have two wings, while the larger have four – no doubt to help them fly with their greater weight on this world with slightly heavier gravity. The biologists will have a field day examining all of these.”

As she looked around, she spied one large bird that could have been as large as herself. It was completely covered in black or dark grey feathers and appeared to be sleeping with its talons tightly gripped to the large branch it rested upon above her. She gave an involuntary shudder, wondering if the thing would have been able to carry her away to be eaten by its young.

The red fox came back to her. “C’mon,” Victoria said. “We should give the guys a hand with the firewood.” She looked around the shadows and brushed a thumb across her rifle’s safety. “There’s something about this place that makes me uneasy, and there’s very few places that do that to me.”

“Arion, Victoria and I are going back to the glade to give the guys a hand cutting wood. Signing off for now.”

“I will be monitoring. Humidity is high at your location, so be sure to drink plenty of fluids while you work.”

“Got it, thanks.”

***

It had taken less than an hour to fill up available cargo space in the Flitter with firewood cut into manageable pieces. Space inside the tiltrotor aircraft was limited, which is why they had been scouting for a clearing large enough for one of the shuttle planes to VTOL in. They could come back later for more, and since the firewood they collected was from trees already downed, they would never have to cut live trees. It was also likely they could transport whole fallen trees in slings beneath the flyers, but that would be a job for the engineers to figure out.

Another marker beacon was left there so they could return later for more firewood as needed, although they could go in any direction from the crater to find more.

When Flitter-2 lifted out of the clearing, the low clouds over the rainforest had grown darker in approach of the daily rains, but as yet none had fallen in this region. Henry took the craft to an altitude above the top of the canopy but below the cloud ceiling, and then headed back over the horizontal forest.

After some time, they approached the ridge rock and Henry slowed their speed. Instead of increasing altitude, he advanced slowly toward the base of the mountains. They would have to rise up through the dense cloud cover in order to get above the jagged mountain tops, and while it could be done with instruments, it was risky. Since they were on no timetable, he considered setting down somewhere until after the rains fell and then letting the clouds break up as they always seemed to do on a daily basis.

“Hey!”

Without taking his eyes off the instrument panel, Henry continued slow toward the looming wall of rock. “What is it, Victoria?”

“I thought I saw something!”

“Well, what was it?”

The vixen unbuckled her harness and carefully came forward to the cockpit area. “I thought I saw a building!”

The cheetah pulled the Flitter up short just a few yards from the mountainside. “Wait, what? A building?”

“That’s impossible,” Dean growled from behind her. “This place is uninhabited – except by us.” Henry looked back at them and saw Ginger’s ears behind the husky’s shoulder; it seemed that they had all come forward.

“Uninhabited – for all we know!” Victoria shot back.

“BR549 studied this planet for two years and never saw any sign of habitation!”

“You all need to get back into your harnesses,” the pilot told them. Despite this, however, they all stayed in place behind his seat.

“What did you see?” Ginger asked.

“It was dome-shaped,” said the vixen, “a perfect half-circle sitting on top of the ground, but there wasn’t much of a clearing around it.”

“If anything, it was probably a rounded boulder pushed up through the ground from the upheaval,” Dean conjectured. Victoria glared at the husky and shook her head.

“It was no natural extrusion.”

Without arguing, Henry rotated the Flitter on its axis and began flying back the way they had come. The others moved back to their seats and buckled in with canine and vulpine noses pressed to the windows in search of the mystery dome.

After ten minutes, the Flitter slowed to a hover again. There had been no place to land and none of them had seen any other clearings along their flight path.

“We’ve come too far,” Victoria complained. “It was closer to where we stopped near the rock wall.”

The feline pilot frowned, but held his tongue, turning the craft around again. He glanced up at the sky and then to his instruments. Rain was imminent.

“Look sharp, everybody,” he murmured.

The Flitter progressed at a slower rate, but the pilot could not be certain he covered the exact same ground as they had on the flight back; there were no coordinates to compare their position to.

At Victoria’s insistence, they moved back and forth over the area for twenty minutes, each time covering a slightly different path, but none of them had seen what she had by the time the rains began falling. Henry found several fallen trees resting parallel to one another at about the same level and height, so he gently set the Flitter on top of them and hoped neither of the giant logs would roll with their weight. When he powered down the fans, the locked wheels appeared to be stable atop the logs, so he leaned back in his seat with crossed arms.

“Just relax, everyone, but don’t move around too much,” he said. “We’ll wait out the rain before we try going back over the rim.”

“I can’t believe we haven’t been able to find it again,” murmured Victoria. “It was plain as day when I saw it, so we can’t have gone back over the same ground.” She rubbed her eyes and added, “I admit that it may have just been a trick of light and shadows, but it was so clear.”

Ginger moved over to a seat next to the vixen and put a hand on her arm. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if it really was a building?” she asked. “What a find that would be!”

“I’m not so sure I would want to find evidence of a previous culture,” Dean groused.

“Why not?” Victoria asked, suddenly perturbed by the husky’s dour mood.

“Because if this planet is inhabited, we may have to find a way to get off this rock and find a new home.”

“Why?” Ginger leaned toward her friend and work partner.

Dean held up two stubby fingers. “One, whomever was here first may not want us intruding upon their world. I didn’t come out here to start a fight with the natives.”

“What makes you think we couldn’t get along with them? There’s a whole world to share.”

“That brings me to two. Humans have a notorious history of planting a flag and deposing others that may be inhabiting land that they want. We came here to colonize, but I’m sure there are those among our two ships who would get indignant of anyone else living here, whether or not they were here first. For all of the good-minded people who would want to do the right thing, there are more who would take what they want – and all be hanged who would oppose them!”

“You don’t think too highly of the human race,” Henry muttered.

“Human history backs me up,” Dean retorted, “and now that our band has been given animalistic instincts and increased strength with personal offensive weaponry, there would be those among us who would freely use them against anyone they thought threatened their way of life.”

He looked over at Victoria. He liked the vixen – a lot – but he could not agree with any enthusiasm she might have of discovering signs of another civilization. “I really hope what you saw was just a rock formation, some exposed magma or other mineral pushed up out of the ground when the meteorite struck this place.”

Victoria crossed her arms. “We may never know, since we can’t seem to find what I saw in the first place anyway.”

The rain continued for well over an hour, but when it ended, the clouds began to break up almost immediately, their supply of water vapor having exhausted in the effort. Sunshine peered through and the whole day seemed to brighten. Henry had fallen into a short nap, but when Dean nudged him, the cheetah stretched, yawned and then stood up from the passenger seat.

The pilot moved to the cockpit, but found it occupied. Ginger sat with her elbows up on the control board, leaning forward with her gaze focused upon the abruptness of the stone wall only a few yards away. Wet rock gleamed in the sunlight and little rivulets streamed down to the ground.

The wolf noticed him standing behind the pilot seat and then she pointed outside without a word. His eyes followed the glistening paths and it took a moment or two before something stood out at him.

Down in front of them was a path at ground-level that led straight into the mountains of the crater rim. It was narrow, barely wide enough for two people to walk side by side, but appeared to go on through the destruction.

“Let’s all take a walk,” she said with a smile.

A moment later, the door of the Flitter opened and the furmen stepped down onto the wet ground. All four were armed, but it was the wolf who took the lead. She held her rifle ready with a finger on the safety, but she betrayed no sense of fear as she stepped toward the mountain pass. Henry locked the door to the aircraft and brought up the rear.

The rain had washed small pebbles across the pathway, but as they progressed the ground became dryer where the rock above shielded it from the daily rains. Looking above them, Ginger noted that the small pass was at the bottom of a high rift in the stone, but the higher elevations came together and the illumination dimmed with the overhead ceiling. They never did cross into full darkness, as random cracks above gave them ambient light.

The ground dried out completely only twenty yards in, but remained relatively level. The path meandered a bit, but did not deviate much. Dean stopped and dropped to all fours to put out a hand-paw at an impression in the ground. It was some kind of animal track and his companions gathered around to see what he examined. The canine sniffed at it before realizing he was doing so, and while his sensitive olfactory senses gave him a wealth of instinctive information, he was unsure of how to interpret what he discovered. If nothing else, the track seemed relatively fresh to him, and that in itself presented a feeling of caution.

He spread out his fingers, but the track was bigger than his hand. It was triangular, somewhat shaped like a duck’s foot, but possessed three large toes, each tipped with a nail or claw that had marked the dry soil. The impression of the heel suggested something with more weight than any of them. There only seemed to be two distinct prints with a small furrow dragged in the dust between them.

“This is larger than anything we’ve seen so far,” said the husky, peering ahead and spotting more of the tracks. “We must be careful. These marks are recent.”

“No doubt there are more life forms out in the forest than out in the crater.”

Dean looked up at Ginger and nodded. “It’s bipedal, walking on two feet, and drags a heavy tail.”

“Sounds like a movie alien,” Victoria said.

Henry smiled. “We’re the aliens here. Whatever this was is likely a native creature.”

“I don’t see any signs of nesting or habitation,” Ginger remarked. “From all appearances, this looks like an animal path, so it must go somewhere.”

Dean stood up and peered ahead of them. The lane seemed to go on in through the mountain with variations on the incoming amount of light. “Maybe it goes all the way in through to the crater,” he suggested. “We’ve seen no other avenues between the crater and forests, so perhaps anything coming and going would have to use paths like this.”

“So, do we stop here or go on?” Henry asked.

Ginger thought about it and then gestured back toward their transportation. “Let’s tag the spot with one of your marker beacons, and then we can come back when we’re better prepared for a hike. We’ve seen how long it takes just to fly over the thickness of the rim. It’ll take hours to hike through – and then back again.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Dean replied. “Better to plan ahead. I would recommend bringing a motion sensor to point in front of us next time in here. The track-maker might be here again and we won’t want to come up upon something that large and startle it.”

“Maybe we should wear some bear bells so it can hear us coming,” Ginger suggested with a smile. “I’ve used those hiking through Yellowstone.”

“Alright, back to the Flitter.” Henry embellished a military about-face and began marching back the way they had come amidst the chuckles of his companions.

Now behind them, none of the furmen noticed eye-shine reflecting in the dim light farther up the pathway.

Chapter Eighteen

Predator

A scream of abject terror put Arion’s onboard systems on instant alert and a triangulation of pickup microphones gave the SI an instant location.

“Mr. Edwards – Alert! Please go the hydroponics chamber immediately. There is an emergency situation if it is not already too late.”

The brown bear dropped the pressure suit he was about to struggle into and pushed off for the hatch of the compartment he was in. Despite the security chief’s ursine bulk, he was able to pull himself hand over hand along the rounded zero-gee corridors of Arion-1 rather swiftly. Fortunately for the incident on hand, he had not been far from where the hydroponics chamber was located near the outer hull, outside of the rotating ring decks.

He grabbed the door frame of his destination amidst the sounds of struggle, but rather than slowing, he used his momentum to swing into the room at near full speed. Across the room with her back to him was Angel Celeste. Her tail was whipping around aggressively and her jaws firmly gripped Rocky’s throat; the tigress was shaking him back and forth and droplets of blood were scattering throughout the room. Somehow still alive, the opossum was madly trying to defend himself and his attacker’s face was already streaked with deep claw marks, one of which had barely missed an eye. There was a wild look on Angel’s face, as if she was nothing more than a large feral tiger.

Although Ethan was blended with a brown bear, he used familiar human tactics and punched the side of Angel’s face with a large fist. She had not heard him enter the room and the unanticipated attack stunned her for a moment. She reactively released the opossum, and although the opposite reaction tried to push Ethan away, he reached out to snare her arm.

Before she could regain her bearings, the bear released his hold on her and punched her snout again, driving her into a bulkhead. Ethan pushed off toward her with a foot on a counter where tomatoes were growing from a suspended metal frame, giving her no time to retaliate.

With formidable strength and using that initial element of surprise, he beat against her skull with multiple blows until her eyes rolled back up in her head. It was unlikely she had even seen what hit her.

Stunned and floating free in the absence of gravity, a trickle of blood escaped her mouth and nose where the bear had beaten her, but the tigress was momentarily unconscious. Ethan grabbed her arms and pushed her off through the door. He wanted to check on Rocky, but he needed to secure the feline first.

It only took a moment to reach a nearby door in the corridor, but he kept an eye on the tigress as he opened the heavy hatch to Emergency Airlock #3. Angel let out a low groan and he quickly pushed her into the small compartment. Once inside, he secured the hatch with a manual bolt and then peered in through a panel of thick glass at her; there was no brig on the ship so this would have to suffice.

She was still unconscious, and confident the airlock would hold her for now, Ethan made his way back to the scene of the attack. When he rounded the corner into the hydroponics chamber, Rocky was clinging to a counter with one hand while pressing a hand up against his torn throat. He was not entirely successful keeping blood from leaking out between his fingers, and bubbles of it floated in close orbit around his person.

Ethan grabbed a wiping rag from a clip on the wall. It was not clean, having been smudged with dirt or some plant residue, but it would have to do. He reached for the opossum to apply it to his wound, but the chef startled at his sudden presence and tried to fight back against a new assailant.

“Whoa – wait!” the bear said quickly. “I’m here to help. I’m not here to hurt you!”

The opossum stared at him with wide eyes, but then he looked around the room frantically, as if he expected the tigress to come at him again. Ethan gently grasped the cook’s shoulders and held him firm. “She’s locked up – she can’t hurt you again!”

“She – she attacked me!” Rocky croaked out, “She wanted – tried to eat me!” He sniffed, gulped and then swallowed hard, making a gurgling noise from his injured throat, and then clung to the stability of the bear’s strong arms in the absence of gravity.

Dr. Kazama pulled himself into the room. “I got here as soon as Arion alerted me!” he announced, moving straight for the opossum. Rocky reached out for the otter with his free hand. The doctor took it firmly. “Come with me, if you can, but keep pressure on your wound. I need to get you back into a gravity zone before I can treat you.”

“Why’s that?” Ethan asked.

“Due to reduced blood pressure, instead of pooling in areas of the body in normal gravity, his blood won’t clot well in weightlessness,” the doctor explained as he pulled his patient out the corridor, taking the most direct route to the outer rotating deck.

Transferring from the absence of gravity into a full one-gee environment was tricky even for a fully healthy individual, but it was almost a gymnastic event with an injured person who needed one hand to keep the blood inside his throat. The physician would need to push the opossum through a slotted, moving opening and someone would need to catch him.

Dr. Kazama looked at Ethan, who had followed them. “Get in first, please, and watch for the deck to come back around to us. You’ll need to hold his full weight when he crosses over the threshold.”

The bear did as instructed and then held out both arms toward the opening once he had gravity beneath him. The hatchway was moving at a good clip and Ethan had to watch carefully for the deck to make a full revolution. He watched the scene outside the slotted wall and braced his feet upon the flooring.

As soon as the doctor and patient came into his view, the otter shoved the opossum through. Ethan caught him in a gentle bear hug and immediately he felt wet blood dropping to his feet. Kazama jumped through farther down the corridor and then made his way back to their position. Ethan had gathered up Rocky in his arms and the chef looked as if he was about to pass out.

“Quickly, quickly,” prompted the doctor. Ethan followed him to a nearby compartment and Kazama immediately grabbed a First Aid kit from a wall locker; they were stationed all over the ship and he first needed to stabilize the patient before they could really get him all the way to the Sick Bay.

***

Consciousness returned to the tigress. Before she opened her eyes, she reached up to rub the side of her nose. She felt as if she had been beaten, but she did not recall having a fight. She felt wet scratches across her muzzle and she opened her eyes to see blood on her hand.

Then it came back to her. She had been out of her mind, as if she were an observer unable to affect the outcome of her own actions, and she had been trying to eat a tasty-looking opossum. It now seemed like nothing more than a dream, but there was no mistaking the scratches across her face or the flavor of his blood that was still in her mouth. She licked her lips not understanding why the bleeding had not stopped yet, but she held up a hand to try to stop the trickle until it could clot.

Angel looked around in a dim light and found herself inside what looked like an airlock. A small, slotted window in a sealed hatch looked down upon the world below; the dim illumination was nothing more than reflected light. The lamp inside the chamber was not on.

Behind her on the opposite wall was the internal hatch with a larger round window of glassteel, but when she tried with one hand to turn the manual wheel to open it, the mechanism was locked tight. Releasing her face, she used both hands to struggle with it, but even her enhanced feline strength could not budge it.

She pressed her hand upon the scratches again, blinking against the droplets that floated around her, and swallowed hard. Had she killed and eaten Rocky? She had no memory of that, but it would not have been the first time she had blacked out when her feline instincts took over. It had happened to her often enough that she had wondered if any of the others experienced such episodes or if it was just her.

Her eyes detected movement and she looked to the inner hatch window. The blue eyes of a spotted snow leopard looked back in at her, and she could see a brown bear behind him. Angel threw herself at the door with a look of anguish.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” she exclaimed. “Is he okay?”

Arion’s voice issued from the airlock control panel. “Piers Roche still lives,” he said, “but he is in critical condition. Dr. Kazama is working on him now.”

“Thank God.”

“Angel, you are being held for the attempted murder of Mr. Roche – and suspicion of the murder of two others,” said Dr. Kate’s voice from the panel. The African lioness was still on the planet below, but her interaction was relayed to the ship. “Can you explain your actions?”

Tears streamed from her eyes and Angel wiped at them furiously. “I can’t reply with anything more than excuses,” she murmured. "I didn’t do it on purpose. My tiger did it all. It’s as if it took control and I could do nothing to stop it.”

“Your tiger took over…” said another voice. She was not sure, but thought it might be the mayor, the former captain of the ship.

Angel leaned against the door glass, resting her forehead against it, but in the absence of gravity, she began to float away. “I have no valid excuse,” she muttered, looking again at her hand. Her wounds still had not stopped bleeding, so she pressed her wet hand up against them again.

“I was on break from moving cargo until the next shuttle docked, but when I passed by hydroponics and saw Rocky, all I saw was prey.” She looked up with remorse. “I didn’t have anything against him – I promise! It was the tiger that did it!”

“Ms. Celeste,” said the calmer voice of Dr. Fernando, “has this happened before?”

The tigress nodded, but then realized that not everyone in on the interrogation could see her. “Yes,” she answered quietly. “My feline’s instincts have been there ever since I was decanted from cryo, and they’re getting harder to control. I have tried to suppress them every time I see a prey species, but these feelings are getting stronger.”

“Angel, have you attacked anyone else?”

“Yes, Dr. Kate.” She covered her face with her free hand and choked back more tears. For those who knew her, it was disconcerting to see this strong-willed woman in such a state.

“Well?” Ken Robeson prompted irritably. It was clear that he was not sympathetic to her excuses.

“A sheep and a cow,” the tigress responded in a toneless voice. “I don’t think I knew either of them. I killed them… and I ate them raw. That much I can remember, but most of the memories are hazy, as if I was just a spectator to what was happening.”

“The ram was Barry Sandon,” supplied Dr. Fernando. “The cow girl was Whitney Marker.”

“You should at least know the names of those you murdered,” added Ken. “We’ve found both of them, or what was left of what you didn’t eat!”

A sound of anguish slipped from her throat. “Once I came back to my senses and discovered what I had done, I hid them and tried to clean up the messes,” she confessed weakly. “I was distraught by what happened, but I hoped their disappearances might be just counted toward the inevitable deaths associated with setting up a new colony. I was going to do a better job of disposing them when I had a chance.”

“Why would you not accept responsibility for what you did?” Ethan said through the door. “Hiding them only makes it worse!”

“I know!” she shrieked. She held out the hand with her blood on it. “I can’t stand that I did it! I didn’t want to be a tiger! I didn’t want to be a killer!”

In the sudden silence of the room, Dr. Kate’s calm but strong voice came across the panel. “Gentlemen, we have a dilemma. Due to our own transformations and the species instincts we’ve experienced ourselves, there is no precedent for this crime. How do we punish her for instinctive predation?”

No one responded for several moments and Angel’s throat tightened awaiting the inevitable.

“Predation or not, it was still murder. But… I really don’t want an execution in our camp,” Robeson murmured.

“It may come to that,” Ethan remarked. “We’ll have to show everyone that they can’t just act on their urges, especially other predators like us!”

Angel’s eyes closed and she wrapped her arms around her middle, ignoring the resumption of bleeding from her wounds.

“What if we banish her from the colony?” Rod Vincent asked without enthusiasm from the corridor outside. “She can use those instincts to survive on her own out in the rainforest and remove her from further temptation against other personnel.”

The tigress opened her eyes and simply stopped listening to the discussion about her. While everyone’s attention was on the conversation, she gently pushed off from the wall and floated across the small chamber. When she reached the control panel where the voices were coming from, she reached out and toggled two control studs.

An alarm sounded and Ethan pressed his face back up against the window with wide eyes. The air pressure within the compartment began to drop quickly.

“Angel, what are you doing?” Rod asked in a rush. “Please stop!”

Ethan pounded a fist against the manual controls of the inner hatch, but the decompression inside prevented it from moving quickly.

“Arion, lock out her actions!”

“I am sorry, Mayor Robeson,” said the Synthetic Intelligence. “I have no control over a system designed exclusively for manual operation.”

The air pressure continued to drop and the tiger’s eyes lost their luster as others shouted for her to stop. She stared blankly at the control panel, but made no move to halt what she had started. By the time the pressure had dropped to ten percent of atmosphere, she had already stopped breathing before the outer hatch popped open to the void of space. With the final escape of residual air, her lifeless body was expelled from the ship directly toward the planet.

There was nothing anyone could do for her; they could not even retrieve her body. By the time anyone would be able to get suited up, Bellerophon’s gravity would have already committed her to reentry.

Chapter Nineteen

Earth Mother

Life went on in the newly-christened town of Tellus Mater, named after the ancient Roman earth mother. Suggested names for the first town on Bellerophon were mostly from Greek mythology, since the planet itself was so named, but most were voted down as undesirable or overused. It was the raccoon biologist, Dominic Silvanus who proposed using Roman names instead. Several were bantered about, but once suggested, Tellus Mater received the most votes. They were no longer on the planet Earth, but were still her children and most thought the name appropriate.

Construction of the first building in Tellus Mater was well underway. A good portion of the town had been surveyed and markers laid out in a standard grid pattern. The Central Authority building would be right at its center with a planned park to surround it as a town square. Plans for the town had already been drawn up before they had left Earth, and although personal vehicles, work trucks and electric carts had been included in the manifest, roads would not be paved until plumbing, optical and electrical lines had been buried beneath the surface. That did not keep people from using them, however, and regular traffic was already becoming commonplace.

In addition to the lake and its feeding rivers, Arion had detected an aquifer of underground water beneath the crater surface at a depth of one hundred seventy-three feet and work had begun to dig a well and construct a water tower for it. While one team was busy with those tasks, others were assigned to lay lines from the tower site to where a waterworks facility would be erected, and from there lines would be spread throughout the town site.

Although the colony personnel were not in an actual rush to build their town, it was a daily concerted effort to stay busy and get things down. Everyone was involved in something every day, with tasks that may or may not have anything to do with individual specific skills.

For several days following the memorial services for Whitney, Barry and Angel, morale was at a low, so Mayor Robeson suggested adopting a typical Terran work week and give everyone the chance to sit back and relax two days out of every seven. There was a nice sandy beach area on the lake and visits to the clean waters became a frequent site to visit on their days off. After the first couple of weekends, overall morale improved and most tried to put those horrible losses behind them.

After daily scans, both onsite and from orbit, there did not seem to be any indigenous fish in the crater lake aside of the abundance of tiny brill, the name given to the Bellerophon version of krill, although there was plenty of microbiology. So far, nothing in the lake seemed to present a hazard to the settlers from Earth, so Piale Bonavita was tasked with hatching Terran fish embryos to begin stocking it with freshwater aquatic life.

The colony gardens of Terran plants were already showing signs of green, and while the plants were still in their infancy, native insect life had already showed interest in the area, so it was hopeful that they would aid in pollination when the time came.

As the days and weeks passed, the only native creatures found to come into the crater valley were numerous flying avian types. The Belle Stars herbivores seemed to enjoy munching on the crater weed, but none of those were ever seen far from the outer ring of mountains and never came all the way to the lake. When not tied up with the construction of Tellus Mater, the biologists were quickly adding to their records on each new kind of indigenous life forms they encountered. Flitter flights into the rainforest garnered more discoveries in vegetation and indigenous life forms, though most of them would likely never have the natural opportunity to spread into the crater itself.

It was likely there could be carnivorous predator types just waiting to be discovered living beneath the rainforest canopy outside the crater, but so far none had been detected and cataloged, although that was assumed to come later. Despite that the lands within the high ridge mountains seemed to be safe, it was decided to keep the perimeter fence in place as an additional precaution. There had been no more sightings of the large shadow flyers that Kate and Barry had seen occluding the stars on separate nights; Arion’s drones had never detected anything either, but Ginger sometimes wondered if the large sleeping black bird she had seen in the rainforest might have been what they had seen. Whatever they were remained a mystery, but so far none had presented a danger.

With the barns, paddocks and corrals in place and populated with live animals decanted from the ship, life was shaping up in Tellus Mater. There were ninety-five colonists to establish the initial footprint on Belle, and all the work that needed to be done between town-raising and care of the animals and gardens almost seemed like too much to do for so few people. Still, they had five years in which to work on it all and none of them had to be in a hurry to provide a living for the other fifteen hundred to follow.

***

“They are not even the same species, but there are too many males taking an interest in Piale,” Emma Bonavita grumbled. She and her husband were driving a fat-tired electric cart between rows of food plants, spraying the young plants on both sides with water from the runoff river that segregated the gardens and stockyards from the town proper. Water sloshed back and forth in the large plastic container behind their seats.

“I wouldn’t worry about her,” Angelo replied. “She’s lucky she turned into an attractive species, but since there are no more like her, there’s no danger of her having kits out of wedlock.”

The brown bear snorted. “That won’t stop them from trying.”

“Piale is an adult. She can make up her own mind who to share her tent with.”

Emma gifted her husband with a cold glare. “Are you trying to pair her off?”

“Why not? If she can’t have kits, that doesn’t mean she has to be lonely.”

“What about marriage?”

“Pay attention to your driving; you almost ran over some of the plants.”

“Answer my question.”

Angelo looked over at his wife. “What does it matter now if she ever gets married? If she did, it would probably be a marriage like ours.”

She bristled. “And what’s wrong with our marriage?”

The lynx signed and gestured from himself to her. “Do you want Piale to have a mismatched life like ours because we’re different species? Emma, I love you, but you’ve been hard to live with since we’ve changed.” The bear growled deep in her throat, but Angelo continued undaunted. “I don’t imagine you’ve enjoyed the arguments we’ve had and no doubt I’ve been hard to live with too, but we disagree more than we agree anymore and we haven’t tried sex even once since we got here.”

The brown bear stomped on the brakes and then whirled on him angrily. “Get out before I knock you out!” she shouted. Angelo narrowed his eyes at her, but stayed in his seat. Incensed by his stubbornness, she reared back and slammed a large fist into his sternum. He launched backward into the dirt and then clutched both hands to his chest in pain.

Emma seemed genuinely surprised at the power behind her punch, but the concern passed within a heartbeat. “Find yourself another tent to live in!” she roared before she took the cart out of gear and then bailed out. She barely missed stomping across growing radishes, but then she dropped to all fours and ran as quickly as she could along the rows back toward camp.

Angelo struggled to sit up, but it was pure agony; he was certain he had felt the bone crack. In the periphery of his vision, he saw several others loping across the gardens toward him, and he was grateful that one of them was Jessica, the red panda farmer who had also served as Kazama’s nurse.

***

“Dr. Colton, I have a report to make on my findings on Bellerophon’s polar regions.”

A rather large anthro-hyena looked up from a microscope on a folding table inside his work tent. The personal tent he shared with wife and daughter was located right next door, but he needed his own work space separate from them. Their toddler was into everything and was a major distraction, but there had been enough additional tents in the manifest that there had been no issue procuring an extra for that purpose.

He glanced at the SI’s face on the tablet propped up at the corner of the table where he worked, but his sight was fuzzy. He rubbed his eyes to let them refocus after peering into the depths of the scope at slides for the past two hours.

“Have you reported to Dr. Kate on your findings?”

“No, Dr. Colton. As the senior biologist, I opted to contact you first. If you are busy, I can report to Dr. Silvanus instead.”

The hyena waved a hand and shook his head. “No, that isn’t necessary. Go ahead with your report.” He scratched at the bare fur on his chest, lamenting that he had already torn through an oddly-shaped shirt that the SI had printed for him before leaving the ship. The species arch of his back was not nice to fabrics that did not stretch well, although the garment had been nothing more than an experiment.

“I have had rover landers in both polar regions, exploring and examining anything of interest,” Arion began. “Continent Six sits beneath the northern polar cap, and although it is entirely covered in glacial snow and ice, I have found several rather large predators inhabiting the coastal areas, most traveling in pairs. The surrounding seas are rough, but contain a thriving ecosystem of small marine life near thermal vents that I have detected beneath the ocean waters. The large creatures feed off of the smaller marine life in a natural balance.”

A video feed appeared in a window of the biologist’s tablet and the hyena felt his pulse quicken at the visuals of new life forms. The large mammalian creatures were bigger than Terran polar bears, and while they looked as if they had fat reserves and thick, waterproof fur of the purest white, they looked nothing like them. They had skulls that were roughly triangular and scoop-shaped with the “bowl” of the spoon beneath their lower jaws. This aided in scooping up the fishy crab-like critters of the ocean.

“Marvelous…” breathed Jeffrey Colton. “Absolutely marvelous. Are you still watching them?”

“Unfortunately, no. My rover got within five hundred yards of where a pair of them were eating and they apparently took exception to the presence of an unknown competitor for food a quarter mile from their dinner. They rushed the rover with traction better than the rover’s wheels and trashed the unit before it could get away. Satellite imagery shows parts of the rover lander scattered across a wide frozen plain.”

“Ouch.”

“My rover on the floating south polar ice of Continent Five has fared better.” The video feed now showed numerous creatures that could only be described as being a genetic cross between a penguin and a sea lion with four large flippers – two fore and two aft. “As with the northern pole, there appear to be an abundance of small marine life in the cold waters surrounding the ice floes, although there are no detectable thermal vents in the southern region. This marine life is decidedly different and the various types are too numerous to catalog at this time with a land-based rover. Perhaps we can send a submersible when I can have sufficient time and materials to construct one.”

The hyena was practically salivating over the images he saw, though not from hunger at a potential prey, but in excitement from a biologist’s standpoint. These were the first true predators they had found. He wiped his jaw on the fur of his arm and had to tear his gaze away from the video.

“Can you please copy all video and collected data to my tablet, please?”

“Transferring now, Dr. Colton.”

“Thank you, Arion. If you don’t mind, shoot copies to Dominic and Kate as well.”

“As you wish, Dr. Colton.”

“If you can get the mayor to agree to the submersible probe, I would like you to appropriate resources to start printing up its parts right away. We’ve got to find out more about these marvelous life forms!”

“Very good, Dr. Colton. I will inform you whenever I have a decision on that project. Once approved, it will take approximately thirty-eight days to complete.”

***

Chef Rocky stood at the entrance to the galley tent with his hands on his hips and a smile on his face as his tail firmly held a cup of coffee within reach. He had been delighted to learn that his tail was prehensile and with practice he had been able to use it as a rudimentary limb to hold things. He had yet to try hanging from it to sleep, since his tent did not have an internal frame robust enough to hold the weight of his human-sized body, but he had often considered it.

He scratched idly at one of the scars on his neck, but gave the incident that had created it no further thought. The weeks that had passed since the attack had given him time to heal up with modern medicine, and counseling sessions with Dr. Fernando had helped him through it. Now that he was healthy again, the colonists had time to enjoy the cuisine to come out of his kitchens once more.

Things were about to change in that respect, however. Arion-1 had been practically emptied of all cargo, and some of the last food items to come out of orbit were thousands of previously prepared meals that had been sent along with them within a stasis field. The fresh food stocks that he had been using to feed almost a hundred mouths three times a day (not including snacks in between) would be running low soon, so until the gardens and livestock were ready to harvest, he and Victoria would soon start serving military-style Meals Ready to Eat. There were many different varieties of MREs, but since everyone now had a plethora of species-related tastes and preferences, it would take some careful planning to get everyone fed and satisfied with what they ate.

The opossum had no illusions over feeding in the coming weeks. People would become discontented with the MREs before there were enough ripened crops and livestock to go back to “real” meals again. He just hoped the carnivore types could keep control over their taste for fresh meat and did not start going after easy prey. This thought sharply reminded him of the trauma he had endured from one such who had not been able to see him as anything more than something to eat.

Local plants from the outlying rainforest were already being sought out and tested to determine if there was anything that the human-animal hybrids could safely eat. They were reminded that not all plants of Earth could be safely ingested, so they would have to discover which indigenous plants could be eaten, digested and broken down to provide nutrition. If they can find such analogous plants and vegetables, it would greatly extend the amount of food they would all have to survive on.

Chapter Twenty

Discovery

“Mr. Robeson, Your Honor.”

The cougar looked up with irritation from his tablet where he had been focused upon construction reports from each of the department heads. “Yes, Arion, what is it?”

“With the exception of twenty-four Global Positioning and Communication satellites, all materials and supplies are now on the surface, as are all living cargo and personnel. Dr. Colton’s submersible probe was delivered to Continent Five earlier this morning and is now in operation.”

“Well, that’s a good report,” Ken responded with a private nod. “Is there anything else that needs doing up there?”

“To deploy the satellites, I will need to take Arion-1 out of its current geosynchronous orbit, boost to a higher altitude, and then move to each location for optimum distribution.”

“Will we lose contact with you while you are doing this?”

“Yes, sir. Your authorization as the ship’s captain is required prior to the start of this operation, as this is the first time Arion-1 will be solely under my control without a human presence since this system became operational.”

“You have my trust, Arion. How long will you be out of contact?”

“Approximately thirty-nine hours, providing there are no issues with the equipment. I am currently orbiting at an altitude of two hundred seventy miles above Bellerophon sea-level. The satellites will need to be placed at an altitude of twelve thousand, seven hundred miles to properly cover the globe so that at least four satellites are in view at all times for optimum positioning. Once all are in place, any location on the planet can be pinpointed with precision and also have available cellular reception.”

“Are you expecting equipment issues?”

“I have powered up all twenty-four satellites and am currently running diagnostics on each of them to ascertain that none have suffered software glitches or system degradation due to time in storage since launch date. If any anomalies are detected, I can repair the issues before deployment.”

“Ah, I see. You have my authorization for this operation. Please send an alert to all personnel devices announcing the blackout of communication and access to information databases, so everyone will be aware your links will be unavailable. Once you have completed your task and have returned Arion-1 to geosynchronous orbit over the Tellus crater, please inform me even if I am on a sleep period.”

“Aye, sir. All directives acknowledged, to be implemented immediately.” There was an instantaneous message chirp on the cougar’s tech devices. Robeson looked over the message and approved of what the SI had sent out to everyone.

“Thank you, Arion. Boost as soon as you are ready and please announce your return when you are back in place.”

“Yes sir, Your Honor, sir.”

Ken heaved an audible sigh. He did not mind when someone called him by that title in an official capacity, but Arion knew he preferred to be informal when it was just he and the SI in discussion. Who would have thought that an artificial, synthetic intelligence could tease him at every opportunity, in spite of requests to stop doing so?

“Arion.”

“Yes, Your Honor, sir.”

“I am about to give you a command directive. Do you acknowledge?”

“Acknowledged. Awaiting command.”

“Command is as follows. Unless I am in the company of other personnel, you are not to refer to me by title. You are to address me as ‘Ken’ during all other personal communications. Do you acknowledge?”

“Command directive acknowledged, sir.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

“You are welcome, Sir Ken.”

***

Dana Barringer was all smiles as she flew over the tops of the high peaks of the crater rim mountains. As a shuttle truck pilot, she had been constantly transporting material and personnel back and forth between the interstellar ship and the camp in the crater for weeks. While she and the other pilots were good at their jobs, the trips to and from orbit had become tedious, but now that the task of unloading the vessel was over, she was now free to engage in actual exploration of the new planet.

Piloting one of the V-780 Bell tiltrotor aircraft, the lapin woman was accompanied by two others in Flitter-3 as they traveled to the south into regions previously unexplored by any of the other parties. There was no reason to believe this part of the surrounding rainforests would reveal anything different, but they would never know if they did not take a look, and now that they had an operational GPS network in place to keep track of their progress, there were fewer chances to get lost.

As with her and her small party, Dana’s husband Sean had also taken Flitter-4 out to the west. With luck, they would return that evening with some stories to tell one another over supper. Even if they did find something, it appeared that any traffic in and out of the crater would have to be made via air travel. None of the ground vehicles would be able to leave the crater due to the height of the rim and a deficit of any mountain passes. The crater was not old enough for the surrounding ridge rock to have weathered down for easy passage. Even outside the crater, the horizontal forest and the rainforest beyond was so dense with vegetation that it would be near impossible for a vehicle to drive through without a cleared road of some kind. It could take generations to lay down a highway in a major effort just to drive from one crater to the next closest one, should another town be developed there.

Today was a day of exploration for all of the pilots. As with the Barringers, Joe Kittinger had taken a team over the mountainous rim due north, and Henry Clifton was returning with his party to the marker beacon they had left behind at the small pass east through the rim. He could have chosen anyone from the entire camp to accompany him, but he had offered the chance to his original team with Ginger, Victoria and Dean. Chef Rocky had not wanted to let Victoria go this time since he needed her to help feed the masses, but Dr. Kate had volunteered to fill her place in the kitchen so that the vixen could go on this outing.

Their plans this time involved hiking through that passage as far as they could go, hoping to prove that even if a ground vehicle could not travel outside the crater, someone on foot or horseback just might. They did not bring horses for this venture, but would explore on foot.

They were prepared for the trek through the mountains taking time, so they had been allowed up to four days to see what they could see before they would need to return to Tellus Mater. Henry was put in charge of the party since he was their transportation pilot, and they were all outfitted with tents and provisions, as well as arms for protection in case they ran into something that had an issue with their intrusion. Merely for the convenience of pockets, each had also been issued an open vest containing items that would be useful.

Having cleared the peaks, Flitter-2 descended at a safe distance from the stone wall toward the signal generated by the marker beacon.

“Mr. Clifton?”

“Yes, Arion?”

“I have two items of interest for you.”

“I’m concentrating on not letting area winds blow us up against the mountains, so I really don’t need any distractions right now.”

“Acknowledged.”

The SI said nothing more, but after a long moment, Henry’s curiosity peaked.

“Go ahead, Arion.”

“Item 1 – Although the global satellites were not yet in position the last time you were here, I recorded the position of the marker beacon based upon visual points provided by your team.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Under normal circumstances, this would give a generalized location and that would be correct, but it appears that the marker has moved.”

The cheetah’s eyes darted from his instruments to the screen depicting the SI’s virtual face, and then back to his job at hand.

“Would you care to explain how the marker moved from where we left it?”

“I can only conjecture that an animal of some kind has carried it off. I am still receiving its signal, but it is reflected; the beacon appears to be farther inside the mountain pass you intended to explore today. It is no longer at the entrance where you were parked.”

“Hmm, that’s a heck of a note. Can you direct me back to the original parking spot without it?”

“I can, but that brings us to Item 2. I have detected trace amounts of processed metal alloy from orbit in two places and Mayor Robeson has asked me to postpone your current mission so that you may investigate the nearest of these.”

“Processed metal?” Henry slowed their descent to a hover, but they were still a distance from ground level.

“That is correct, Mr. Clifton. Coordinates have been transferred to onboard mapping.”

Now that the Flitter was stationary at a safe distance from the nearby rock walls, he pulled up the GPS map on his panel screen. Two blinking silver stars indicated the locations of the metal detections, and he raised an eyebrow when he recognized the general vicinities of both.

He leaned back and called over his shoulder to the others in the passenger compartment. “Please come up here, I have news.”

It took a moment for everyone to get out of their harnesses and gather at the door to the cockpit. “What’s up?” Dean asked.

“Our hiking trip has been postponed,” Henry began. “Arion has detected processed metal nearby and we’ve been directed to check it out.”

“Processed metal?” Ginger repeated. “Did we lose a part off the Flitter the last time we were here?”

The cheetah snickered at that. “No, our flyer was intact when we got back last time, and nothing was missing when I did my pre-flight check this morning. This is something else, and that’s not all.”

Dean frowned. “There’s more?”

Henry looked straight at Victoria. “There are two spots showing this metal, and the location that Arion has provided from orbit for the nearest is in the vicinity where we were looking for your dome.”

A wide vulpine grin crossed the vixen’s face and she laughed aloud. “I knew I’d seen something!”

“We were close when we were looking for it,” Henry clarified, “but just didn’t hit the right spot. With the GPS network in place, now we can go right to it.”

Dean returned to his seat without a word. The prospect of a possible alien construct bothered the Siberian husky.

“What are we waiting for?” Ginger said with delight. She darted back to her seat and strapped herself into the harness. Henry waited until everyone was secure and the women were chatting animatedly before he put the Flitter back into motion.

Processed metal! The implications of that were staggering and the mystery of the moving marker beacon was forgotten.

Once again, Victoria’s nose was pressed up against a window, looking out at the innumerous horizontal trees passing below. There were various forms of vegetation growing between them and there were occasional clearings where natural rocks or hills had deflected the fallen giants, but there was only one thing that her eyes sought; she hoped that she would be the first to spot it since she still remembered what she had seen before.

Despite her wishes, however, it was Ginger who saw it first from the other side of the compartment. “There is it!” the gray wolf exclaimed.

“Come show me,” Henry called back to her, slowing the aircraft. She unbuckled her harness and made her way forward to the pilot. The tiltrotor craft rotated around horizontally until the cheetah saw the objective she indicated, but he barely gave the object a glance. It was the narrow confines of the space between the giant trees that he studied with a critical eye.

A moment later, they were hovering over the small clearing; with luck, it was just big enough for the Flitter to land in. If there had been the slightest breeze down near the ground, he might not have made it, but the cheetah dropped in straight down with barely a foot of clearance on all sides.

Before all systems were shut down on the aircraft, Victoria had already opened the door and scrambled to the ground, having slipped into her pocketed hiking vest along the way. With clearances so tight, Henry had landed with the door facing a strange dome-shaped object. Although it was the color of greenish mud, it was a perfect half-circle sitting atop the ground, protected by a knoll of rock behind it, and its apex top looked to be around fifteen feet high.

One of the large fallen tree trunks lay partially atop it, providing a bit of a faux cavern beneath it. When all four furmen stood outside the Flitter, they could see that there were several other smaller domes beneath the horizontal trunks, but the destruction of the forest had all but demolished them. Only the one that Victoria had seen from the air seemed to be relatively intact.

The dome did not look like a building, as the red vixen had first called it, and it certainly did not look like processed metal. If anything, it looked as if something had grown right out of the ground; it looked organic, almost like a mud bubble nearly twenty feet in height. It appeared to be solid and blended in with its surroundings. It was a wonder that she had seen it at all from the air in a moving aircraft.

Victoria reached out and placed a hand flat on its surface; the others watched quietly. “It’s cool, and feels like wet leaves,” she muttered. She leaned forward and sniffed closely at it. “Smells like wet leaves too.”

It had gotten quiet after the Flitter’s fans rotated to a stop, but an avian creature broke the silence with a shrill cry. The furmen were all tense from the mystery of the situation, and the cry made them all jump. There were several other answering calls from farther away, and soon the natural sounds of a warm summer morning began to fill the air; avians, insects and other critters went about their business while the human hybrids approached the bubble.

Dean mimicked Victoria and placed his hand flat on the surface of the dome, but then he wiped away a layer of leaves, dirt and dust that covered it. What had felt and smelled like leaves were indeed plants that had grown over the dome. Beneath the covering was a hard shell surface, although it was the same color as the vegetation that covered it.

The husky pressed his fingers into the shell, and although it was firm, it gave in as if made of some kind of rubber or vinyl. It, too, looked as if it was organic, that the leafy outer covering was only a layer.

“What is this stuff?” he murmured.

“Here’s a way inside!”

Everyone turned to look at Ginger as she brushed aside more of the leafy covering, revealing a dark opening that was partially obstructed by a panel.

Already equipped for the planned hike in through a rift in the mountains, the wolf pulled a flashlight torch from a vest pocket. It was of a type that did not require batteries to provide power, just a wind-up spring generator; it had been projected as practical in an environment where replacement batteries might be hard to come by.

“Careful…” Dean growled. “You don’t know what’s inside.”

The she-wolf glanced back at him, swishing her tail in agitation. “Rusty, I am careful,” she told her work-mate tersely, “and you’re right, I don’t know what’s inside. That’s why I’m going inside to find out!”

Dean bit back a retort and let the others go in after her. He was still hesitant to investigate something that might confirm the existence of an intelligence other than mankind. He was not actually afraid of a hypothetical intelligence. Truth be told, he simply did not want to provoke a conflict between two species since humans were notoriously unwilling to share land they had claimed as their own.

Lifting his techwatch to his lips, he spoke in a quiet voice, as if afraid he might disturb something besides birds or insects.

“Arion, this is Dean.”

“Yes, Mr. Ruston?”

“We have found what appears to be a constructed dome of organic material. We’ve found no processed metal yet, but we are about to investigate its insides with caution. It appears this is the building that Victoria previously reported seeing when we flew overhead.” He gave the SI a more detailed description of what they found while the others disappeared in through the opening. “I do not know if the communication signal will reach you once I go inside, but I will try to give you reports as I can.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ruston. Please exercise caution and safety.”

“Aye to that. Dean, out.”

There was an obstruction of some kind across the entrance, and he realized with a hard swallow that it was a door panel. While the dome could have been mistaken for an earthen bubble, there was no mistaking a flat plate that slide along a track in the floor, corresponding with another just above it. The height of the doorway, however, was much taller than a human, or even the enhanced height of any of the new anthro-humans. It had to be around twelve feet high. Were the original inhabitants really that tall, or did they possess some kind of horn or extrusion on top of their heads that would require a higher passage? Maybe they just liked tall hats. The door was wedged tight, however, so he had to squeeze past it.

Inside the dome, four flashlights roamed around in wonder. There were platforms that might have been tables supported by a thick central pedestal, but anything that had once been upon them were now scattered upon the floor as detritus they had to step around. The flooring itself was a rubbery material similar to the dome’s exterior, slightly textured to provide traction.

The walls appeared to have been organically grown, but broken sections due to the cataclysm revealed internal metal supports in rounded grid patterns; no doubt this was the origin of Arion’s processed metal alloy. There was also an abundance of a fibrous material that may have been some kind of threaded electrical, optical or other type of wiring, although made of different materials than those used by the Terrans.

Henry crouched down and picked up something from the floor. To him, it looked like a technological device of some kind, yet it was also constructed with a blend of metal and organic compounds. The item he held was obviously broken, with more of the fibrous threads partially exposed from its interior.

“Arion, we are inside the dome. Are you still reading us?”

“Yes, Mr. Clifton. Your signal is coming in strong and clear.”

“Very good. Please keep tabs on us. We will all make periodic reports of what we find.”

“Acknowledged.”

Victoria shined her light across the room. There was a type of shelving growing out of the walls, but as with the tables, all previous contents were now upon the floor. She knelt and sifted through the things at her feet, but most of it was unrecognizable. There were things that could have been tools, but were of such different designs that for all she knew, they could have been sports trophies, children’s toys or eating utensils. Some she picked up and sniffed at, but the scents were also unfamiliar – and old. These items had been here for some time.

So far, none of them had found anything that would identify who the original occupants had been or what they might have looked like, but one thing was certain and that was that humans were not the only intelligent beings in the universe. Humans had never been to this distant world before, so everything they saw had to have been made by non-human hands and technologies. Despite what might be interpreted as tables in the front room, there was nothing analogous to chairs, seats or beds. Even the forged metal tools they found did not indicate what kind of hand or limb might have once held them. There was very little actual color in the things they found; perhaps these people were color blind or just did not have similar aesthetics as the human race.

The interior of the dome had internal dividers as walls or partitions, each that looked as if they had been grown from right out of the floor and into the ceiling. On one wall of the first room were large, curious markings that looked as if they could have been a written language scrawled across the flat surface, but it was anybody’s guess what it could mean.

The vixen moved toward the nearest doorway and cautiously peered through the opening with her torch. Every new discovery they made excited her, but she held a private fear that she might find alien remains deeper in the structure.

There was more of the same kind of detritus in the next room, but these items seemed to be more of a technological nature than what she had personally inspected on her own. Over near a wall were several blackened items that were egg-shaped, all about the size an ostrich might lay. There was an indentation at one end with several coppery metal prongs in a triangle pattern, and along the outer perimeter was a row of circles that could have been diodes or indicators, but all were dark.

Victoria picked up one and immediately felt a small tingle where she touched it, and one of the diodes light up briefly. She carefully set it back on the ground and tried another one. It had the same effect on her, but the next one she picked up was cold and inert.

“Henry, can you come in here?” she called out, rubbing her fingers across the fur of her leg. “I’m in the next room.”

A moment later, the cheetah crouched beside her while the other two shined their lights on them from the doorway. The pilot picked up one of the technical eggs and Victoria saw his tail twitch.

“I can feel an electrical current!” he conveyed. He hefted it in one hand, as if estimating its weight, but the longer he held it, the stronger the tingling became. He placed it back on the ground with the others and looked up at his companions. “I could be completely wrong, but I would almost wager that’s a battery or capacitor of some kind, maybe to power some of their devices. It tingles when you hold it.”

When he looked again closely, there was a darker ring around the middle of the eggs that looked to be of a different type of organic material. Testing a hunch, he picked up one of the live ones, touching only that middle ring. He grinned and held it up. “It has an insulating band around it,” he explained. “There’s no electrical tingle when I hold it like this.”

“Did you find anything that had an end that might plug into that port?” Ginger asked, crouching down to look closer at the egg battery in the cheetah’s hand.

“I haven’t,” Dean replied, “but I wasn’t actually looking for it. Let’s look again.”

Victoria had already gotten up on to her feet and was prowling into the next room. With all of the stuff on the flooring, she could have examined everything better down on all fours, but the vixen still needed one hand to hold the flashlight torch; she would have needed an elastic strap to hold it to the side of her head.

When she turned the corner, the next room contained no tables or even shelves, but the flooring was sharply concaved and she had to watch her footing around the edge. The place was empty, save for a fine layer of dust and a few dried leaves on the floor of the deep bowl. She was only curious why this space was different for only a moment before moving on to a connecting room.

This area was different from the rest. Organic technical devices in form-fitted receptacles adorned every wall from floor to high ceiling. Some of the spots were empty, and a few of the corresponding items lay broken on the flooring, but it appeared that some were missing altogether. Another opening in the wall was blocked by rough boulders that had pushed inward.

The vixen did not feel like calling out in a loud voice, so she lifted her techwatch and set it to connect only to those in her party. “Hey, you all need to see this. I’m in a back room filled with tech-toys. There’s also another door to the outside, but it’s broken.”

“Toys?” responded Henry’s voice.

“Their devices. There are walls full of them. Look out for the pool room coming in here.”

“Pool room?”

“I am guessing it might have been a small indoor pool,” she said. “You can’t miss it; just don’t fall in.”

It only took a moment for her companions to find her. “What is it with the room with the curved floor?” Henry muttered, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.

“Perhaps it was a bath,” Ginger offered to guess.

Dean went to one of the walls of the room they had entered and reached for one of the items. It appeared to be secured with a thin strap, but the old material crumbled when he pulled on the device.

The organic object was roughly diamond-shaped, about eight inches long and four across. It was the same greenish-brown, mud color and texture as everything else within the dome. The husky shined his flashlight over it and found one of the three-pronged ports on a side.

“Somebody get me one of the eggs that still has a charge. I want to see if it will make this thing work.”

A moment later, Henry handed one to him, holding it only by the insulating band. Dean took it, examined the port and then mated the two items together with a subtle click. A ring of lights illuminated around the perimeter of the egg and the diamond-shaped device emitted a low hum.

Looking closer at the unit, he found several depressions along one edge. Curiously, he pressed a finger into one and it gave slightly. Almost immediately, the device produced a series of sounds that were completely foreign to the furman explorers.

“What’s it doing?” Ginger asked.

Dean held up the alien device, but felt no vibrations coming from it. “It’s not doing anything other than making weird, random noises.”

“Maybe it’s a communication device of some kind,” Victoria guessed. “That almost sounds like words… a spoken language.”

“Yes, it does,” Henry remarked. “A voice recorder, perhaps. Maybe it’s for taking notes on their daily activities.” He held his techwatch to his lips. “Arion, are you hearing this?”

“Yes, Mr. Clifton. I have been monitoring your discussion.”

“Can you make heads or tails what this thing is saying?”

“The sounds do not match anything in any of my linguistic databases.”

Victoria listened to the sounds for another moment before she turned toward the wall. “Let’s try your battery on something else.” In a purely random selection, she grabbed a device strapped in high on the wall and offered it to the husky.

Dean touched the pad to turn off the vocal intonation and then unplugged the ostrich egg from it. He returned the diamond unit to its receptacle and took the new item the vixen handed him. This one was a cube four inches on a side. There did not seem to be any markings, lights or indentations to touch. All sides were smooth but for one spot to plug in the battery. As soon as he plugged the egg into its port, the cube vibrated hard for just a few seconds, but then became inert again.

“Mr. Clifton, what did you just do?” Arion asked.

It was Dean who answered. “I plugged the battery to another device. It shook in my hand and then just stopped. It didn’t make any sound or lights. Not sure what it was, but it didn’t do anything else.”

“My sensors detected a powerful signal burst from your location lasting 3.14 seconds. It was not recorded despite my quickest efforts to capture it. Can you repeat it?”

“Trying now.” The husky unplugged the device, waited a few heartbeats, and then plugged it back in. There was no reaction this time. Even the indicator lights on the egg remained dark.

“Nothing happened this time,” Dean reported. “Let me try another battery.” Henry disappeared into the other room and came back with another egg.

When he plugged in the second battery, the lights lit up weakly on the egg, but nothing happened with the cube. “No joy,” the husky reported. “It either burned itself out or it was only for a one-time use. I have no clue what it did.”

“Nor do I,” Arion replied. “You may continue your investigations, but when you return, please collect such items and bring them back with you. I am sure personnel in Tellus Mater will want to examine them in greater detail.”

“We haven’t found anything like a recharger, so there’s no guarantee what’s left will have enough of a charge to play much with the devices,” Henry said. “We’ll bring back what we can.”

Ginger tilted her head. “It sounds like the daily rains have started, but we’re dry in here. Whatever this dome is made of, I see no sign of leaks despite that a tree fell on it.”

“There were other domes,” Victoria reminded them. “They looked demolished, but I may go take a look anyway. It’s possible this was an outpost office and the other domes were their quarters.”

“Go ahead,” Dean replied, “but be cautious.”

The red fox unholstered the pistol she carried and held it so the barrel faced upward. Without a word, she stepped out through darkness.

“Due to the amount of damage around here,” Henry remarked, rubbing a hand over the rock protruding through a blocked door to the outside, “our home crater is probably why this place has been deserted. The meteorite impacted the earth, formed the crater, pushed up the mountains and the shock wave knocked the surrounding rainforest on its tail. There’s what appears to be a granite knoll on the lee side, and it’s probably the only thing that saved this dome.”

“Have you found any sign of the former inhabitants?” Arion asked.

“Nothing,” Ginger answered. “No pictures, nor even furniture to know what shape or kind of seats their butts needed to sit in. There are only tables and wall shelves. Even the hand tools don’t tell us what kind of hands they might have had.”

“The ceiling and doorways are high, so they may have been taller than we are,” Dean added.

“We’ve found no bodies,” Henry said, “but there’s no telling how long ago this happened. Scavengers could have dragged away any who may have died from the impact.”

“Investigations into the rock, soil fertility, fallout ash and vegetation in the crater seems to indicate the meteorite may have impacted approximately two decades ago,” Arion reported. “Lander rovers in the other craters on the continent corroborate this conjecture. The lack of bodies may mean that either they died in the other domes that were demolished, or they could have left the planet entirely before or after the destruction of their outpost.”

Henry nodded. “Here’s another thought. If they were away from this location at the time of the impact, it could also mean that they might have had to abandon this spot and relocate to another part of the globe.”

Dean looked troubled. “Are you saying it’s possible they’re still here somewhere?”

“That is a likely scenario.”

“Not only that,” Ginger added, “but before the meteorite hit, this spot was deep inside the rainforest. What if this was just a home out in the country? There may be a whole civilization hidden under the canopy elsewhere on this continent.”

“Arion did detect a second source of processed metal.”

“That second source is located deep inside the pit where Mr. Clifton left behind a marker beacon,” the synthetic intelligence reported, “but the strength of that detection is much smaller and weaker.”

“I really hope that isn’t the entrance to an underground civilization,” Dean said with undisguised dread. “Just by moving in and building our town here could start an interstellar incident.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Offspring

Dr. Kazama loped across the tent city on all fours. When he had nothing in his hands, the river otter enjoyed traveling this way. Although his furman shorts had pockets large enough to hold his tablet, the techwatch could mimic many of its functions, albeit on smaller screens, and with it strapped to his wrist, he was unencumbered when he traveled in this manner.

To many of the four-footed anthro-humans, the otter amused them with his slinky lope, but he had no issues getting around in this manner. The military-style dog tags clinked together as he walked, but he had gotten used to the sound in recent weeks and barely ever noticed them.

When he entered the galley tent, it was to find a cup of coffee, but when he saw Dr. Kate helping Rocky preparing for the lunch meal, his purpose changed. He got up onto his feet so he could see above the folding tables and approached her.

“Hello, Kate,” he said, “may I have a few minutes of your time?”

The African lioness looked up at him from the freshly-washed utensils she was separating into containers. “We’ll have to talk while I am working,” she muttered. “My taskmaster is complaining about the lack of help today and I haven’t had time to grab anyone else for temporary reassignment.”

“I can talk while you work,” said the physician, “but I will need your attention.”

“That serious?” she said with hesitation in what she was doing.

“Not serious as an emergency, but I do have information you have been waiting on.”

“Just a moment. Wait right here.”

The deputy mayor left the tent and Chef Rocky looked up from his work just as her leonine tail disappeared. “Now where’s she going?” the opossum complained.

Dr. Kazama moved to the coffee pot. “Probably to get you some extra help.”

“It’s about time!”

The African lioness was gone only a few minutes before she returned. In the meantime, the river otter had acquired a cup of coffee and waited for her at a nearby table. Following the lioness was a male hyena and a female dingo. She gave them a few directions and the pair of them assumed the duties she had been engaged in earlier.

Dr. Kate wiped the ground dust from her hand paws and then took a seat opposite of the doctor. “Okay, Satoru, what’s on your mind?” she asked.

“You know that I have been researching our hybrid merging for weeks.” Kate nodded, but said nothing. “I have studied samples that I’d taken from everyone upon decantation, but I’ve also randomly selected a number of individuals for further examination. One of the areas of study has been to see how our transformations have affected our ability for reproduction. With our explicit DNA strands mixed up with differently coded information, I was unsure if any of us would be able to have children.”

“I am guessing you have come to give me your results.”

“That’s right, Kate. Although I have not tested everybody, it appears that each person that I have is still capable of producing viable eggs and spermatozoa.”

“We can have children?”

“Eh, yes and no. Due to how specific each person’s DNA is now, only a human crossed with the same other species might be able to have children. For example, Emma Bonavita is a brown bear and her husband Angelo is a lynx. Although they are both still half-human, it’s the other DNA elements that would prevent them from ever having more children. However, if Emma mated with Ethan Edwards, another human/brown bear mix, the potential of them having children together would be more successful, although still not guaranteed.”

Kate made a face. “I can’t imagine Emma and Ethan getting together – for any reason, not to mention sex.”

Kazama nodded. “My personal thoughts exactly, although even if Angelo was the same species as his wife, I doubt any children would result from that match anyway.”

Kate blinked. “Why not? I thought you just said that the same match had the probability of having children.”

The otter smiled. “That was personal knowledge speaking out of turn. Emma and Angelo have separated.”

“Oh really? I hadn’t heard that, but I can’t say I am surprised. They’ve been fighting like cats and … er, bears since they were decanted.”

“Personal distastes aside,” Kazama continued, “dissimilar species mixes can try to breed all they want to, but it is rather impossible that any of them would have offspring together. Nature is now the ultimate contraceptive, because very few of our personnel have turned out to be of the same mix.”

Kate was silent for a moment, but then lowered her voice to ask a question. “What about two felines that were similar, but not exactly the same? Could they have children… or kittens?” She kept her eyes focused off into the distance without looking at the doctor.

“I think the chances are extremely rare, unless they are the same feline species,” the physician answered. “I’m sure an African lioness and a cougar could have plenty of unprotected sex together and still not produce any kittens.”

Kate looked up sharply and saw the otter’s look of amusement. “How… how did you..?”

Kazama chirped in laughter. “Kathleen, the tent you and Kenneth share is next to mine. Although my ears may be smaller than they used to be, my hearing is more sensitive. While not actually trying to eavesdrop, I’ve heard conversations you two have had, in addition to other… endeavors.”

The lioness swallowed with difficulty. “I… see,” she murmured. “Sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Kate. You aren’t the only two among our numbers to experiment with your new bodies.” The otter leaned forward, and in a low, conspiratorial tone of his own, confided to her, “Jessica and I have done some experimentation of our own, although we’ve tried to be more discreet due to the sensitive ears and noses that everyone else now has.”

A sly grin crossed Kate’s features. “You and your nurse?”

“Yes, that cute little red panda is a right farmer’s daughter, if you get my meaning.”

“She is a farmer’s daughter, and she’s a farmer herself.”

“You didn’t get my meaning, then.”

“Innocent and willing to play?”

“Not so innocent, but yes, willing to go for a roll in the hay. She likes to dress the part, too. She had Arion make her a pair of Daisy Duke denim shorts with a strap and cutout for her tail, and a gingham shirt that she can tie together beneath her bosom. Her chest isn’t that large after her transformation, but she still has enough to make it look effective.”

Kate pantomimed fanning herself with a hand and sat back in her chair. “Well, if two similar species like me and Ken are dissimilar enough to prevent pregnancy, it’s unlikely any of us are going to be reproducing. Earth’s attempt to preserve the race by starting a colony on another world seems to have failed before it’s begun. If we can’t produce children, our colony will die out as we all get older.”

“Oh, there will be a few, like the Barringers,” Kazama countered. “They’re already married and just happen to be of the same species. They’re different rabbits, but they are so close that I would be surprised if they didn’t announce a litter of bunnies before we’ve been here a year.”

“Maybe, but unless there were other rabbit couples that could produce their own bunnies, we’ll have inbreeding in the Barringer herd within a generation, and those will eventually die out because of inherent defects. This would mean the same thing even if Emma and Ethan did get together and have little bear cubs. With no genetic diversity, the family line would eventually die out, but not before birth defects began to affect them all.”

“You are forgetting Arion-2,” said the otter. “If the same anthropomorphic changes hit them as it did us, we’ll have the potential for a greater number of mixed and matched species within their population of fifteen hundred.”

“I admit I did forget the other ship, but still… in order to survive beyond a generation or two with just a few babies, we would have to implement an ordinance that like-species must breed together. This would cause great hardships for those who planned to have families together on this new world, and would tear apart established couples — as it’s already doing with the Bonavitas. I can’t imagine the amount of animosity this is going to cause everyone.”

“All true,” said the physician. “Discuss this with Ken and then come back to me when you’ve made your decision.”

“Decision? Which one?”

Dr. Kazama looked her in the eye with a serious expression that almost looked comical on his mustelid face. “Now that you know what you know, do we inform our people that in addition to the permanent changes our bodies have gone through, that very few of us will ever have children again — or do we let them have their experimentation and let nature tell them on its own? Similar species might get together on their own once we have greater numbers and more matches when the other ship arrives, without having to mandate that they must have sex together.”

Kate sighed. “As Furs, we are not sterile, but for all practical purposes, the result is the same.” She got to her feet and cast a glance back toward the kitchen where they could hear Rocky griping about something; his moods swings had been more dour lately following his near-death experience. “Thank you, Satoru. Personally, I would prefer to keep this from the general public, but that might not be fair to them. I will discuss it with Ken tonight, but now I need to get back to work.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Wolf & Husky

Dean and Ginger watched Flitter-2 lift off and fly away to the east. The Siberian husky looked over at his lupine partner with a look of uncertainty before he turned and faced the mountain rock beside them.

“What’s the matter?” Ginger asked him.

“You and I are now separated from the rest of humanity. We’re nearly fifteen miles from camp, and our ride just took off into the sunrise. It’s just the two of us now.”

“True, but you have me to protect you while we explore,” the she-wolf said with a wide canine grin. Dean grinned back and hefted his backpack up to a more comfortable position on his shoulders. Traveling with such packs would prevent them from hiking on all fours, but they needed everything they carried.

Victoria and Henry were unable to join them on the planned excursion through the rift in the mountains this time. The cheetah was needed to take a team back out to the dome to collect some of the alien tech for further examination, and Rocky was unwilling to allow the vixen to duck out of kitchen duties again to go hiking; there was simply too much to do for the chef to handle without her.  Dr. Kate had commandeered a few others to help out as well, but Victoria was the cook’s right arm and he said he could not do without her again.

This left only the pair of construction workers to investigate the possible passage through the mountains from the horizontal forest to the crater within. Dean and Ginger were often partnered together in their work, but they had never been a couple in the romantic sense. They were simply good friends who worked well together, and this assignment was no different, or at least Dean initially thought that way.  Still, sniffing the unfiltered air brought him a scent that made his blood tingle in an unusual way.

The time they were allotted was four days total, so they had two days to go in and the same coming back out, barring any unforeseen incidents. With luck, they could make good time and find their way through the mountain rift before they had to be back.

The wolf lifted her techwatch to her lips. “Arion, Dean and I are heading into the passage. Will you be able to track us in there?”

“Only somewhat,” came the reply. “I am receiving the signal for the marker beacon, but it is reflected from rock up through the mountain rift; I am unable to get a specific fix on its location. The same may be true for your techwatches once you get inside, so please report in periodically so I can attempt to triangulate your movements.”

“Acknowledged,” she said.  The wolf nodded to her companion and took the lead.  Small pebbles across the path crunched beneath their feet, but once they were beneath the edge of stone above, the ground smoothed out to a thin layer of fine sand. The upper elevations of the rift varied and opened up randomly, and ambient light became the norm. Although some places were darker, they did not experience full darkness, no doubt in part due to more sensitive furman optical nerves. Should more light be necessary, they had their spring-generator flashlight torches to show the way.

The path remained relatively level and meandered a little, but for the most part it continued straight through the mountain rim. For the first half hour of their walk, neither spoke while they listened for minute sounds around them. The floor cushioned their steps, and they left behind footprints alongside the toed, duck-like prints with dragging tail marks they had seen on their first visit. They had no idea what might have made such marks, but it was evidently a larger creature than any they had previously seen inside the crater. Sniffing the prints and drag marks with their sensitive canid noses, they detected a faint scent different from anything they had experienced before.  Something alien. They hoped it was not a local predator, so they wanted to be alert in case they wandered too close to its den.

After an hour, however, quiet conversations started up between them to alleviate potential boredom. Although they both enjoy exploring and discovering new things, the vista that greeted them was mostly unchanging, and there was little to keep their interest. At first, their topics focused around the construction of the Tellus Mater water tower, an engineering project they were both involved in when they were not off with Flitter-2 outside the crater, but after time, they began to discuss various relationships of their friends and coworkers.

“So, has anything improved between you and Victoria?” Ginger asked him.

The husky shook his head. “No, still just friends. She’s happy with that, but doesn’t really have an interest beyond that. As much as I would like more, I’m okay with it too. I’ll find someone eventually.  What about you?”

The wolf softly sighed. “I still miss Barry,” she said wistfully, “but I know he isn’t coming back. Dr. Fernando says I need to move on, and I’m sure that would be best, but the truth is that I just haven’t been looking.” She looked at him with a suddenly impish smile and repeated his remark. “I’ll find someone eventually.”

Before Dean could respond to her change in mood, she sneezed twice in a row. “Goodness!” she said, digging into her vest pockets for a napkin. She didn’t find one handy, so she gave her companion a hesitant look and then wiped her nose on the fur of her arm.

“Ack!” he exclaimed. They had been walking side by side and the arm she used was the closest to him.  She made a movement as if she was going to wipe her arm up against him, but the canine danced a few paces away and shook a finger at her.

“Keep your mucus to yourself!”

“I hope my allergies aren’t kicking up again,” Ginger responded with a sniffle. “I didn’t bring the meds that Dr. Kazama gave me for it.”

“What are you allergic to?”

“Dunno, something local. It first hit me the night before Barry…  yeah. I was never allergic to anything back home, but something here on Belle doesn’t like my sinuses.”

The husky pulled off his backpack, set it on the ground, and then opened up a side pocket. He pulled out a white handkerchief and passed it over to her. “My grandfather taught me to never go anywhere without at least one.  I brought along two, so you can have that one.”

Ginger took it and blew her pointed nose into it. After wiping her nostrils, she folded it and held it back out to him. “Thank you.”

“No, no, no,” he said adamantly. “That one’s yours now!”

She gave him a smile. “Okay, I’ll wash it first before I give it back.”

“You’ll probably need it again before you can clean it.  Just burn the thing when you’re done. I don’t want your cooties!”

Ginger laughed aloud, and after wiping off her mucus-smeared arm, pocketed the handkerchief as the canine pulled his backpack into place again. “I can think of more pleasant ways of sharing my cooties with Rusty.”

Dean blinked at her remark and then closed his mouth, that strange tingle coursing through his blood again. This was an unexpected development.

***

Henry stood just outside the open door of his Flitter and frowned at the interior. Much of the available space inside was occupied with collapsible boxes now filled with various and sundry foreign items they had collected from the Outpost, as the alien dome had become known.  He, David and Rod had arrived an hour earlier, after having dropped off the hiking team at the mountain pass.

The feline pilot would come back in four days to retrieve Dean and Ginger from their excursion, the amount of time they had been allotted. If the pair of explorers could not fully penetrate the passage through to the other side of the mountains within two days, they would need to turn around and return to their starting point in order to catch their flight back to Tellus Mater.

The cheetah walked around the Flitter and glanced under the spaces beneath the fallen trees where other alien domes had been demolished.  They had been investigated earlier for tech or a sign of bodies, none of either had been found, but he wanted to have another look before they departed. He dropped to all fours and padded quietly into the shadows.

Just as he disappeared, another figure stepped out into the tiny clearing that was practically filled with the bulk of the tiltrotor aircraft. It stopped and studied the lightweight composite craft in open curiosity. The creature walked upright on two legs, going slowly around the Flitter and made a full circuit, where it came to a stop at the open door. Its head peered inside on a serpentine neck, with multiple arms resting on the open frame, grasping it lightly with fully functional hands that were surprisingly dexterous. A thick tail trailed out behind it, and the blunt tip wavered from side to side.

From inside the domed Outpost, a jaguar and a spotted snow leopard stepped out into the sunlight, each carrying a box of pilfered items. Both halted abruptly when they saw the four-armed creature. Rod set his box down on the ground quietly and then reached for a holstered revolver. The .44 Magnum would stop a grizzly bear, but he was unsure if it would do the same to the large alien creature. It was not until he cocked the hammer that the animal, if that was what it was, noticed the two furmen, first swiveling its ears toward them before it moved its head.

Although somewhat lizard-like, it appeared to be a hairy, warm-blooded mammal. More than anything else, it resembled a biped dinosaur only vaguely analogous to a Stenonychosaurus, although with a three-foot long neck, making its height around nine feet. Its head was topped with two fuzzy, cup-like ears that did not look as if they belonged on a dinosaur-kin creature.

It was covered in longish hair of iridescent colors and random patterns instead of leathery skin, and rather than hunched way over like many bipedal dinosaur types, it stood mostly upright on two hefty back legs ending in triangular feet with three large, claw-tipped toes. Behind it was a thick tail providing counterbalance.  Unlike any video dinosaur the furmen had ever seen in a nature show, it had four muscular arms that were fully human-sized with multi-jointed hands possessing three fingers and a thumb, each with retractable claws; from the way it handled one of the alien devices it had lifted from a box, these appeared to be finely articulate. Each pair of arms shared the musculature of its broad shoulders.

Within its serpentine head were a pair of predator-like, forward-facing eyes, and it studied the two males with intense interest. There was a slight bony ridge between its eyes with a single vertical slit along it apparently serving as a nostril. Its mouth was partially open and a pink tongue nervously swept thin wet lips. Its teeth, what could be seen of them, appeared to belong to an omnivore, but none of the newcomers to this world had any interest learning whether or not its tastes might include the flavor of furman flesh.

Bracing it steadily in both hands, Rod pointed his revolver at the forehead above the creature’s emerald-green eyes, but did not fire. He merely held it in his sights as Dave set his box down onto the ground at his feet.

This was the largest indigenous creature anyone had seen near the colony since their interstellar ship had arrived, and although many had conjectured that there had to be other strange things unseen beneath the rainforest canopy, no one had considered a kind of dinosauria.

It watched them watching it for a couple of minutes, but then it turned back to the Flitter to set the item in its hand back into a box.  It then turned back to the furmen and took a couple of tentative steps toward them.

While it did not appear to be threatening, with a species alien to anything on the Earth, the two furmen could not know how it might react.  The spotted snow leopard kept his revolver ready, but was not in a hurry to shoot this thing.

A lock of hair fell from the creature’s forehead down into its eyes, and in a movement that appeared surprisingly feminine, it brushed it aside with one of its hands. Dave tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. It almost looked like the thing smiled slightly at having to adjust its hair in front of guests.

Noticing a marsupial-like pouch within the hair at its abdomen, Dave murmured, “I think this whatsit is a girl.”

“Are you sure? I can’t tell,” Rod deadpanned. “Go lift its tail, see if there’s anything dangling.”

Dave snorted softly. “I’m not going near that thing. It might take exception to having its tail touched and its privates looked at, but it has a pouch like an opossum.  You go check it out.”

“Nope. Let’s just agree that we think it’s female and let someone else come back out for a closer look.”

The jaguar held up his arm in slow movements as so not to alarm this thing, and used the secondary screen of his techwatch to take several pictures of the new arrival. The whatsit, as Dave had called it, stretched out its head on that long neck, interested in the shiny metal that gleamed at his wrist, but when the creature took another step toward him, the furman backed away. It stopped and withdrew slightly, four sets of fingers opening and closing uncertainly, but then, one at a time and in turn, it held up each of its hands and spread out all of its digits wide in some kind of gesture.

“Well, the biologists will have a field day with these pictures,” said another voice.  Dave and Rod looked over at Henry, who now stood on the opposite end of the aircraft with his own techwatch up.

The whatsit looked back and forth from the furmen it had been interacting with to the cheetah that now flanked its other side.  An all-too obvious look of sudden distress crossed its features, then the alien ducked beneath the closest downed tree and scrambled out of sight through the narrow opening.  The Furs could hear the creature’s heavy footsteps brushing ground detritus as it retreated, but none of them gave pursuit.

It was quiet in the clearing for a moment, and then all three of them burst into laughter at once. It wasn’t done out of amusement, but more out of relief that the encounter had not gone badly.  Henry rejoined his companions after the jaguar gently lowered the hammer of his revolver with a thumb before holstering it. The pilot then helped them bring out a few more boxes to load into the Flitter.

“What was that thing?” Dave finally asked, crawling into the aircraft. His eye was on the overhead clouds, expecting the daily rains to begin at any time.

“I don’t know, but it sure seemed curious,” Rod replied, climbing in behind him. “I don’t think it was ever a threat. It didn’t seem dangerous.”

“Maybe not,” said Henry, the last to get inside, “but you never want to take anything for granted in this place.  For all we know, what looks impassive to us might have been aggressive posturing for it. It didn’t seem upset with you two, even with you pointing that hand cannon at it, but only ran off when it realized there was another one of us. There’s no way of knowing if it recognized us as predators, and although it was larger than any of us, I’m sure it realized that together we might have been able to bring it down.”

He closed the door, engaged the lock, then moved past the boxes of alien tech to the cockpit.  “Everyone strapped in?”

“We’re all in,” Rod reported. “Let’s go.”

***

“Look over here,” Ginger whispered to her hiking partner.

In the shadows of an alcove just off the primary path was a flattened pile of dried leaves. Some of them were from the populous crater weed, but there were others that looked as if they might have been collected from the rainforest. They were spread out over an area that would equal a standard horse stall in a ranch barn.

“It’s something’s nest,” Dean whispered back.  “You check it out. I’ll keep watch in case its owner comes back.”

The wolf gave him an uncertain look, but nodded.  She set her pack on the ground and then crept forward on all fours. Her nostrils quivered as she took in the scents at the edge of the pallet.  She sifted the olfactory aromas through her memory and her eyes lit up.

“I know this scent,” she murmured. “Whatever this thing was, it was inside Victoria’s alien outpost.”

“Its prints are everywhere,” Dean remarked quietly.  He crouched in the dust and placed his hand beside a large, triangular foot print with toe claw marks. “I saw these outside the dome also.”

Ginger looked out through the nest, specifically looking for the feathers of a very large bird or avian creature, but only saw bits of dirt, sticks and a kind of fuzzy material that might be fur.  She sat back on her haunches and shined her flashlight around the alcove. There seemed to be natural outcroppings of rock on the walls, and there were several items resting upon them as if they were storage shelves.

She stepped around the edge of the nest without actually walking upon it, and took a look at the items.  With a small gasp of surprise, she recognized several metal hand tools that were likely taken from the dome. She had no idea what they might be used for, but if this creature had been inside that place, it may have taken things that simply appealed to its fancy; she had a sudden mental image of a giant, saber-toothed packrat with three, blood-red eyes and hoped she would never meet such a thing.

Included upon one of the shelves was a small, hand-sized device with markings in English.  “Here’s the marker beacon,” she announced, taking it down from its shelf. A small red diode blinked every few seconds.  She held it up and Dean nodded.

“Put it in your pocket,” the husky said. “We can reuse it elsewhere.” Ginger pocketed the device and then continued looking over the other items along the rock walls. She decided that she need not take anything else, so she made her way back over to her partner.

“I can smell water,” she said quietly. “There must be an underground spring nearby.”

“That’s probably why this thing is camped here, to be near a water source. That’s where it might be now, off getting a drink.”

“I think we should go,” Ginger whispered. “I wouldn’t want to be here whenever it comes back.”

“Nor I.  We still have a long way to go, so we may as well get back on the trail. Who knows? We may see the thing on the hike back.”

“I’m not sure I want to,” said the wolf.  “Let’s go. We can tell Arion what we found along the way.”

***

Ginger stumbled over her own feet and fell up against her partner. Dean grabbed her shoulders and held her upright. When he looked over at her travel-weary face in the glow of a flashlight, her reflected golden eyes were open only as slits.

“I think it’s time to stop for the night,” he muttered.  Ginger only nodded and moved to one side of the passage to sit down on her haunches and rest her head up against the rock wall.

Dean pulled off his pack and set it on the ground. He untethered his bedroll from the bottom and then spread it out. Ginger did the same, her movements slow.  Once she had her sleeping bag next to his, she lay down and closed her eyes.

Other than the unoccupied nest, the wolf and husky had walked all day without finding anything of real interest. It was nothing more than a dirt passage through a rift in the mountain, and they had even lost the dim sunlight coming through. They had discussed turning back more than once but neither of them had wanted to call it quits so soon.

“Don’t go to sleep just yet,” Dean told her, pulling out a canteen. “I will make dinner.”

“Mm hungry,” she murmured. The wolf forced herself back into a sitting position while her partner rummaged through his pack for two MREs and a flameless heater.  Fifteen minutes later, he handed her a pouch of shredded beef in barbecue sauce with black beans and tortillas and another packet of utensils, condiments and several cookies. He had selected a different packet for himself, and the companions ate in relative silence.

Dean finished his meal and cleaned up the area when Ginger curled up on her bedroll with her tail draped across her nose. There was only a mild breeze flowing through the rift and some of the scents on the wind changed with the arrival of nighttime. The husky sniffed at the air and found some of the nocturnal scents interesting, but without a reference to what they were associated with, he could identify nothing specific. There was nothing that raised an alarm or his hackles, so he felt fairly relaxed.

Dean reported in with Arion, giving him a brief rundown since his last call, and then felt a wave of exhaustion come over him. “I am as bushed as Ginger, so I probably wouldn’t last long keeping watch. I am going to put out a motion detector with a bubble of twenty-five yards in case anything comes our way. Can you monitor?”

“Yes, Mr. Ruston. I will alert you if anything outside your perimeter is detected. Sleep well.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

The canine yawned widely and then stretched out on his belly on the bedroll, but he did not need a pillow. He was so tired that he was asleep almost immediately.

***

Dean awoke the next morning with a small bit of sunlight streaming into his eyes from an overhead crack in the rift. He was curled up on top of his sleeping bag, but there was another body spooned behind him with one arm around his middle and fingers spayed out within his belly fur. Listening to her breathing, he determined that his partner was awake, but he felt so comfortable that he was reluctant to move.  Unfortunately, his bladder convinced him otherwise.

The she-wolf’s arm tightened around his middle when he tried to pull away, but nature’s call was becoming insistent. “Let me up,” he whispered, instantly wondering why he whispered as if he would awaken anyone else. “I need to take a leak.”

Ginger sighed, but let him go. She didn’t open her eyes, but remained in place when he got up onto all fours. He padded over to the security sensor and switched it off so he could go downwind a short distance to do his business.

When he returned, Ginger was sitting up on her haunches, grooming her pelt with a brush.  She gave him a warm smile, but continued with her task. Dean watched her for a moment and then he crouched at his pack.

“Breakfast?” he asked, but she surprised him with a shake of her head.

“I have jerky in my pack,” she told him. “I’ll gnaw on some while we walk. If we don’t find the other end of this passage by the end of the day, we’ll need to turn around and go back so we can catch our flight back with Henry. Making breakfast would take too long. We should get started as soon as we can be ready.”

“That’s a good point.” Dean put a portable camping coffee pot back in his pack and rummaged around until he found the jerky he had also packed. This and his canteen of water would provide a walking breakfast, although he hoped they would find a natural spring or snow runoff soon to refill their containers.

Ginger took a turn to go relieve herself, and by the time she returned, Dean had both of their bedrolls tied up and their packs ready to don. He finished up a brief report with Arion, and within moments, they were on their way again.

***

The pair of travelers stepped out into full sunlight when the sun was directly overhead. The rift in the mountains did indeed go all the way through as they had hoped, and when they emerged the impact valley was spread out below them, covered in a lush carpet of crater weed that grew all the way up the steep slopes of basin. Tellus Mater and the center lake were about ten miles away and were lost in a distant haze. However, it was the steep slope below the ledge where they had come out that caught their attention. They had seen the spoor of other creatures that had used the rift as a passage along their journey, and there seemed to be a well-worn animal trail that continued in a traverse back and forth down into the crater.

Only a few yards away from the rift was a series of cascading waterfalls fed by the snow-capped peaks high above them, feeding one of the rivers that flowed down into the crater valley. After a day and a half inside the mountain, it was a beautiful vista all around and the moisture-filled air smelled fresh.

Dean pulled off his pack and got down on all fours to inspect the tracks on the animal trail while Ginger reported in to Arion. The scents associated with the different prints told him that several types of creatures had used this trail; there were more varieties of tracks than actual creatures they had seen since their arrival, so he knew there could be more discoveries ahead.

“…are going to follow an animal trail down in to the crater,” he heard Ginger telling the SI in a raised voice to be heard over the falling water. “You can track our progress and feed our coordinates to Flitter-2 so Henry can pick us up where the ground is more level and better suited to landing. It will still take us a while to get down to that level, so he won’t need to leave just yet.”

“Understood, Ms. Martin.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

Dean looked over at her. “That’s the new plan?”

“I didn’t feel like walking a day and a half back to our starting point,” she said. “We made it through the mountains, so I told Arion that we were taking the animal trail down into the crater and Henry could pick us up once we’ve gotten further in.”

“Good thinking.” He looked over at the waterfall and gestured toward it. “We can fill up our canteens before we go.”

“We can do more than that. The trail was dry and dusty, and I want a shower.”

The husky raised an eyebrow with a smirk. “You want a shower.”

“I didn’t bring any shampoo with me, but all I need to do is rinse the dirt from my fur. Once I’ve had a chance to do that, we can head down.”  Without even looking at him, she set her pack aside, unfastened her techwatch, and then peeled off her furman garments. Dean’s interest was fixated on her furry backside as she picked her way through the mountain rubble between the path and the water, idly noting how she used her tail to counter her movements to maintain balance.

She held out a hand into the falling water and then jerked it back quickly. She looked back at him and called over the din, “It’s freezing cold!” She then stepped right under the falls with gritted teeth, and began rubbing her hands through her fur quickly to help rinse the dust out.  With her fur slicked down by the water, Dean could see more of her feminine figure that was generally hidden beneath her fluff.

The husky admired her for a moment more before he made a quick decision to join her. He left his things next to hers and then made his way over to the waterfall. She grinned and reached out a hand to pull him under, and the frigid temperature was such a shock to his system that any heated stirrings he might have felt by seeing her bare furred form was instantly extinguished.

He began rubbing his arms and chest in quick moments to get the job over as soon as possible, but then Ginger helped him, rubbing out the dirt and dust from the guard hairs of his pelt. With delightful laughter, her hands strayed more than a few times and he wound up doing the same with her.

Unfortunately, the snow runoff was too cold to linger, so they finally had to dart back out into the sunshine to warm up.  After shaking like dogs, they took turns squeezing the remaining water from one another’s fur, but the play became too much for either one of them.

Without any verbal communication between them, Ginger backed him up to the mountain rock beside the torrent and kissed him deeply. Their physical natures might have changed with the transformation, but after a few awkward moments, kissing with canine mouths was just as enjoyable.

Dean had always liked Ginger, even back during their work together in orbit over the Earth, and her sudden amorous actions resulted in a passion that he had been unaware of before. In a mutual meshing of bodies, they made love up against the rocks, and took their time to enjoy the pleasure.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Whatsit

The ribbon-cutting on the town’s water tower was done with little pomp and circumstance. The crowd consisted of little more than the command staff and the workers who had built it, and the ribbon was a short red string held between two people that was cut with a regular pair of scissors.

While the tower had been under construction, another team had laid water lines throughout the parts of Tellus Mater that would see the first buildings; a septic system and a small water treatment plant had also been recently completed

The station beneath the tower was put into operation and the pumps soon began drawing water from the underground aquifer through the filtering system and up to the tower reservoir. Providing pressurized water, they would now have indoor running water for drinking, washing and toilet facilities for each building as it was completed.

As the assembled crowd began to dissipate, the techwatches for the town mayor and his deputy both chirped at the same time. They exchanged glances and the cougar raised his up to his mouth.

“Yes, Arion?”

“Carson Weathers has reported sighting a new creature out by the Lake Gate, near the public park that he’s been in charge of putting in.”

“A new creature? How big is it? Does he think it poses a threat?”

“He said it is bipedal and stands taller than most of us, even the bears. It has been showing up outside the perimeter fence every day for the past week, simply watching their activities. It was a curiosity at first, but since it appeared to be non-threatening and made no move to attack the fences, the workers began to ignore it as nothing more than a part of the local scenery.”

“Did anyone report seeing it when it first showed up?”

“It was reported to Dr. Silvanus, the lead biologist.”

“Did he report anything? This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

“Dr. Silvanus said he went out to take a look, and he and the creature stared at one another through the fence for close to an hour. He took numerous notes and photos, and the creature seemed undaunted by the attention. When he returned to camp, he made a report and uploaded the photos.”

An image of the creature appeared on the small techwatch screens. “A four-armed, hairy dinosaur with large ears?” Kate asked in amazement. “Did he come to any conclusions?”

“Yes, Dr. Kate, but only in that its physical description appeared to be the same form of dinosauria that was reported by Mr. Clifton’s team about three weeks ago at the alien outpost discovered beyond the crater mountains to the east.”

A written description of the creature appeared on their displays and they both took a moment to read through it. “I remember seeing this report now. Was this the same creature, or another of its kind?”

“Unknown at this time, but images from both sightings depict similar markings.”

“Okay, so if Carson said it has done nothing more that watch them passively through the fence for days, what has changed that he needed to report now?”

“A few of the mothers and their children have been out to visit the new playground in the park, and the creature has shown a focused interest in the young ones. It has not acted aggressively, but it has begun holding onto the fence and watching with what he described as single-minded intensity. Mr. Weathers does not know if the creature is a predator and presents a threat, but he is asking if someone can come out with a rifle to stand watch over them. The playground equipment is all finished, but the workers are still employed at other areas of the park and cannot take the time to watch over the mothers and their children while they are there.”

“Have there been any others of this type?”

“No, Dr. Kate. It is only the one animal. No others have been sighted, not even by my roaming security drones.”

“Please inform Carson that I will come out with a rifle to watch over them,” Ken stated. “My duties for the rest of the day can relax without me.”

“I will come out too,” said the lioness. “I want to see this thing, whether it’s a danger or not.”

“I have just informed Mr. Weathers that the two of you will be out there soon. He will be expecting you.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

Both lions made their way to the command tent and Ken went to a large gun safe in a corner of the interior room. He unlocked the cabinet and pulled out a rifle and a box of ammunition. The mayor checked out the firearm and loaded it with rounds, and once he was satisfied, he slung it over a shoulder and pocketed the rest of the ammo. While he was taking care of that, Kate had gone to procure one of the electric carts. Built along the lines of a golf cart, this had a bench seat in front, but a cargo area in the back for crates or other supplies they may need to haul. She had chosen one with a full solar charge and had it out in front of the command tent when Ken walked out; he climbed up onto the seat beside her with the rifle standing up beside him.

Without a word between them, Kate headed out in the direction of the lake. They passed over a bridge that had been erected over the runoff river and then bumped along a worn trail beside the waterway leading from the town proper to where the park was going in; an actual road would be built along this way at a later time.

It was not all that far, however; they could have easily walked there, but it would have taken longer than either of them wanted. The whatsit had not presented a threat, but with it showing an interest in the children, they could not be certain it was mere interest and not a predatory hunger.

The perimeter fence did not encompass the nearby lake, but one section with a vehicle gate was near one shore of it near where the runoff river fed into the lake. This was close to where Barry Sandon had been killed, but since it was also the place where many in the camp liked to spend their weekends relaxing at the lake, its natural beach had become a popular place to visit.

When the cart pulled up at the edge of the park, a bobcat wearing a pair of bright red furman shorts walked out to them. Several other workers were busy preparing an area cleared away of crater weed for Bermuda grass seed imported from the Earth. On the far side of the park area was a play area that used sand gleaned from the lake beach for the ground beneath the playthings.

“Thank you for coming out, Your Honor,” Carson said as they stood up out of the cart. “You too, Dr. Kate.”

“Please,” the cougar said wearily, “unless we’re in an official setting, call me Ken.”

The bobcat nodded. “Sure thing, Ken.” He looked at Kate and then gestured out toward the play area. “Look out through the fence and you can see the thing,” he said. “That whatsit is watching the kids, always watching."

"Have you tried to drive it away?" Kate asked, her tail twitching to match her mood.

“No, we have tools and materials, but none of us brought weapons,” Carson answered. “Until now, we’ve never felt like it was a threat. It looks like a hairy dinosaur, but hasn’t behaved in a predatory manner.”

“Until now?”

“It’s still only just watching, but who knows what it’s thinking. The critters on this world are big unknowns, so I didn’t want to take a chance. Maybe I’ve just seen too many dino-movies.”

“Quite possible,” Ken replied with a smile. “We’ll check it out.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m going back to work.”

The cougar raised his techwatch. “Arion, we are about to get up closer to the creature with only the fence between us. Please monitor us with anything you have in the area.”

“I will be listening in via the techwatches, and will be watching from above with a security drone. The perimeter fence pole sensors are active as well.”

“Thank you. Stay sharp.”

“As always, sir.”

With a round ready in the rifle, Ken slung its strap over his shoulder. The two of them stepped across tilled earth and approached the play area near the edge of the perimeter fence, safely out of the way of the hustle and bustle of the workers’ activities. Typical playground equipment was spaced apart: slides, swings, monkey bars, merry-go-rounds, teeter-totters and spring horses, in addition to an open area where kids could play in the sand and a wooden gazebo with seats for the adults to watch over them. A cooler of water bottles sat on a bench seat for those who got thirsty out in the sun.

There were only a few Furs taking advantage of the cool morning. The squirrel, Emiko Kirato and her young mouse Daisuke were both seated in the play sand, quietly building sand castles. Nearby at the monkey bars was a dingo, Jeanette Colton watching her kangaroo daughter, Kimmy skipping rope – an action surprisingly accomplished with large feet and a thick tail. Carson Weathers’ own son, Dale was a rotund little black and white panda cub, who sat quietly atop the monkey bars looking down at his hopping playmate.

A small flock of colorful, three-winged birds flew overhead and glided down to the water’s edge of the lake. These had become a common sight in the crater valley, although watching them flap the feathers of their tails in an alternating pattern with their lateral wings could be a mesmerizing sight.

The uncommon sight, however, was now studying the newcomers slowly approaching the fence where it stood with watchful eyes. Ken and Kate stopped several yards from the fence, wary how the whatsit — as Carson had called it — would react to them standing so close; Ken pulled his gun around and simply held it pointed at nothing but the sky.

It was almost unnerving, the thing studying them, just as surely as the lions studied it. With a neck stretching three feet above its wide shoulders, it looked down through the twelve-foot fence at them. There were only a few inches between each of the horizontal fence slats, but the whatsit’s eyes watched them steadily.

“So, what do you think?” Kate asked her companion.

“It’s the largest indigenous creature we’ve seen locally since landing,” Ken muttered. “I think only Ethan or Emma could look it in the eye.”

“Really?” Kate retorted. “This one is more than eight feet tall! Our bears may be seven feet to their ears at the most.”

Ken twitched his tail behind him. “Okay, maybe that was an embellishment. If either of them had been a polar bear, maybe they’d be bigger.”

“Perhaps.”

They talked quietly for several minutes, and the creature’s attention was now fully upon them. When it did nothing more than simply stare at them with slow blinks, Ken shrugged. “I’m going to go sit in the gazebo out of the sun and keep an eye on it from there.”

“Go ahead,” Kate replied, keeping her eyes on the strange creature. “I will stay out here a little longer.”

“Suit yourself, but stay off to the side a little, okay?”

“Why?”

Ken gestured with his rifle. “I don’t want you in my line-of-sight from the gazebo if this whatsit gets agitated by your staring contest.”

“Understood.”

The cougar walked away, but kept his head turned slightly to keep an eye on her as he walked. It would have been easier on all fours, but that was something none of them had mastered while carrying something in their hands.

Kate watched him for a moment, but when she turned back to the fence, the creature was gone. She was startled for heartbeat, but then she saw the whatsit over at the nearby lake shore beach. Its long neck moved back and forth as if searching for something, and then it knelt on thick knees and stretched out two of its arms toward the water.

When it rose up again, it held one of the pale green, grapefruit-like water plants that Will Andresen likened to a woman’s bosom. A single root dangled beneath it, and for just a moment, the creature’s gaze focused far out into the distance before giving its head a brief shake. Kate smiled at that, having once shared the feeling that thing had just experienced. What she did not understand, however, was why it grabbed that pliable plant specifically. Was it a source of food for it, or maybe pierced, the plant could be a water container of sort to quench its thirst.

She watched the whatsit methodically wrap the twelve-inch dangling root around one of its four wrists and then held it up against its body with that hand. Odd. Once done, the creature returned to the fence, but did nothing more than hold the water orb and stare back in through at the lioness.

Kate put her hands on her hips, twitching her tail, and wondered what that was about. However, feeling like Ken, she was at a loss for anything else to do at this time. The creature had made no acts of aggression, and since arriving at the fence, it was now more focused on her than it had been with the children. Even its fuzzy, cup-like ears seemed trained right at her.

“Well, my friend,” she murmured in the animal’s direction, “as long as you don’t present a threat, I suppose you can stay, but I hope you can realize that we will protect our children if you think you can make a meal out of them.”

The creature’s eyelids blinked rapidly several times and it released its hold on the fence to back away a few steps, its ears wavering back and forth. Kate looked on in surprise. Its movements almost reflected as if it had understood her.

Well, she thought to herself, if that water plant allows it to feel my emotion, just as it did us, it may have understood that much at an instinctive level. She snorted and shook her head with a slight smile. “Behave,” she said aloud, “and maybe we can be friends.”

With that, she turned and walked away. The whatsit approached the fence again and slipped the fingers of two hands into the slats to grip it lightly. It peered in to watch the lioness drop to all fours and walk away toward the wooden gazebo.

The creature seemed focused upon the two lions in the structure for a while, but then its ears shifted to the adult squirrel talking to her three-year old mouse. The mother pointed a finger at the child and said his name, and then waited for him to repeat it back to her. Then she pointed a finger at herself and said the word “Mama”, which the young male repeated with a grin. From a cloth bag at her side, she picked out various everyday objects, told him what it was, and waited for his response. Each time he correctly repeated a word, the mother would clap her hands and praise him, and he would even mimic the clapping himself. Sometimes he would not get something right, but his mother only repeated it until he got it correctly.

When she ran out of items in the bag, she pointed to things around them; fence, rock, sand, foot, hand, ears and such. When she said “ears”, she grabbed his large ears lightly and wiggled them, making him laugh and giggle.

The whatsit watched their exchange closely, even reaching up to lightly grasp its own ears. When the squirrel got the mouse up onto his feet, she dusted the sand from his shorts and his leg fur, and then led him away toward the other mother with the two children she watched over.

The two mothers fell into a lively conversation and soon neither were watching over their young ones. None of them were really old enough to get into much trouble, but the little mouse began wandering from each of the playground things one to another. Each time he neared one, he would touch it with a hand and then say its name.

When he ran out of things to name, he looked toward the large gate in the fence. He wandered over to it and put his hands on the metal, and then he noticed what no one else had. The ground was uneven and the gate halves did not come together perfectly at that spot.

The boy edged into the gap and squeezed through to the other side without much effort. He chittered in delight and then took a step toward the lake he could see nearby. The uneven ground beneath the awkward mouse’s feet was a mix of wet sand and gravel rock, and there were small washout gullies from drainage during the daily rains that fed into the lake. The ankle of his bare foot turned on one of these and he stumbled. He fell over sideways and hit the ground, but it was soft enough that it merely stunned him.

The creature had watched the mouse with mere curiosity, roaming around the play area on his own away from others of his kind, but when the child scrambled under the fencing and then fell over, the whatsit rushed toward him.

Jeanette Colton looked away from her conversation with Emiko Kirato when her daughter Kimmy stumbled over her own large feet and let out a disgusted snort. The young kangaroo had tripped herself up numerous times, but instead of crying out in distress, the little female had developed an expression of disgust with herself each time. Her dingo mother chuckled and helped the girl back up onto her feet.

During the interruption in the discussion, Emiko looked up for her own son, but did not see him right away. The little mouse was prone to wandering, so she gazed around the area, looking for a sign of his thin tail sticking out from behind the play equipment.

Her search came up empty and she began to feel concern. It was likely he had wandered out of the play area toward where the workers were preparing the rest of the park, but when she stood up and peered out toward them, she still did not see him.

She was beginning to panic and Jeanette got to her feet to look too. Over in the gazebo, Kate sat alone, quietly having a conversation on her techwatch with the ship’s Synthetic Intelligence in orbit. Ken had taken a walk to find Carson for something that had occurred to him.

“Dr. Kate, I am hearing sounds of distress in the background,” Arion interrupted their discussion.

The African lioness looked up and it was only then she noticed the frantic mother calling out for her missing child. Without responding to the SI, she jumped onto all fours and raced over to Emiko.

“I can’t find him!” the squirrel exclaimed. “I can’t find my son!

Kate’s first reaction was to look over at the perimeter fence, but she did not see the creature. It was not where she had left it, but then she scanned along the barrier and felt the blood drain from her face.

The creature was pacing slowly back and forth along the fence at the gate, and the mouse boy was riding upon its back!

She looked for Ken, but he was too far away, so she dashed over to the gate as quickly as her feet could take her. Sobbing in sheer fright, the boy’s mother followed right on her heels. Jeanette quelled her own reactions and gathered Kimmy and Dale to her closely for protection in case that thing came for them too.

When Kate and Emiko slammed up against the fence gate in unison, the creature stopped pacing. Daisuke grinned and waved to his mother. “Mama! Mama! Lookit!” the child said gleefully.

Emiko could not respond. Fear had paralyzed her vocal cords, but she shook the fence hard in her hands, which did nothing more than rattle it.

Kate was calmer, but only to a lesser extent, and she saw something the mother did not. The child was safe, apparently unharmed and cheerful. The creature still held the bosom plant in one hand, but with the other two, it reached up over its shoulders and gently grasped the boy upon its back. Emiko froze in sudden fear of what this thing was about to do to her little mouse.

The creature lifted the child over its ears and then set him down gently onto the ground in front of its feet. The boy ran to the gate and squirmed back through the gap before anyone could react. He rushed to his mother’s arms, and it was then that Emiko burst into tears and clutched him to her breast.

The animal stepped up to the gate and with one at a time, it held up each of its free hands with all of their digits spread out. It then gestured toward the mouse with one of those hands, and in a surprise to everyone, it said, “Return something lost.”

Kate felt a ridge of fur rise up all along her spine. The creature had spoken! – and its words had been said in understandable English, albeit with a peculiar accent, no doubt in part to having to form the words with a differently shaped mouth.

Emiko gasped also and knelt to check her son closely, but she found no damage other than a smudge of earth in the fur of his forehead and typical dirt he always seemed to have on his little hand paws and knees. He seemed unhurt and in surprisingly good spirits.

She looked at the creature and regained her feet. She swallowed deeply, but then after a hesitation, she said, “Thank you for returning my son.”

“Wander away. See Die’sue’kay fall ground. Bring back to mother.”

Another surprise. “How – how do you know his name, Daisuke?”

“He told. I also watch you teach him speech. I learn too.”

Kate took it in slowly, silently focusing upon the bosom plant still held by the creature. “You… you learned our language by listening to Emiko teaching her son?”

“Ee’mi’ko,” it repeated, sounding out the name. “Some. Still good not. Plant help.”

Speaking in a slow cadence so the creature might be able to keep up with her words, the lioness put a hand on her chest. “I am Dr. Kate. Do you have a name?”

The creature sounded out what seemed to be “Sori Zaizen.”

“Sori Zaizen. Is that your name?

“Yes.”

“You have surprised us. Please forgive our fear.”

“Understanding. I fear first time see your people.”

“When was this?”

“Outside moun’tains, at out’post,” still sounding out some words until it got them right.

“That was when our team found the dome!”

“Do-dome ruined.”

They had determined that the outpost dome was of alien origin, therefore this must be one of those aliens – not some mindless animal! Kate reigned in her thoughts and answered calmly, “Yes, they told us. That was you they saw there?”

“Yes.”

“You traveled here from there?”

“Came see.”

Kate felt her heart rate slowing. Emiko simply stood aside, clutching her wayward son to her as if he might run off again. Daisuke sat there passively, quietly smiling at the creature as Jeanette and the other children slowly approached now that the apparent danger had passed.

“Well,” the lioness said after a moment, “welcome. What can we do for you?”

“Please to talk. Questions.”

“You have questions, or think we have questions?”

“Yes,” said the creature.

Kate actually laughed at this, and in a surprise to the mothers, Sori Zaizen’s face lit up in a recognizable smile of its own.

Emiko quietly came closer and found her voice again. “Sori Zaizen,” she asked politely, “are there more of you around?”

“More of – me?”

“Your people? Your kind?”

Sori Zaizen dipped its head. “No,” it replied in a low voice. “No more my people here. Alone here.”

Kate looked at the two mothers. “Okay, I think we have things under control here. You can go now.”

No one moved.

“Please?” Kate tried again. This time, the dingo led the children back to the gazebo, though they took their time to walk away. Kate glanced over at Emiko. “If you will excuse us also,” she said, “I will spend some time with our guest.”

“Of course,” and then to the alien, “Again, thank you.” In answer, the creature dipped its head.

“Bye!” Daisuke said with a smile and a wave.

As Emiko led her son away, Kate spoke quietly into her techwatch. “Arion, get Ken over her. Tell him to keep a sharp eye, but don’t act unless there’s a sign I might be in danger.”

“Done, Dr. Kate.”

The lioness tapped a code on the gate lock panel and there was an audible thunk. She slipped outside, relocked the gate, and then looked up at the taller creature. “Please walk with me.”

The creature approached the lioness and then walked alongside Kate as she led it on a stroll out along the lake shore. Despite that she could hear the soft whine of Arion’s security drone observing from a safe distance above them, the feline was tense, on the alert for some sort of surprise attack, although she tried not to show it to the creature.

“Please to calm,” said the alien. “I no hurt you.”

Kate nodded with a knowing glance at the empathic plant still in Sori Zaizen’s arms. Assuming from her own experience with the water sphere, it had to have sensed her feelings with it. “Do you prefer to be addressed as Sori Zaizen, or Sori, or Zaizen?”

The creature blinked. “Sori is race. Zaizen is self. You may say Zaizen.”

“Thank you, Zaizen.”

“Doctor is race? Kayt is you. Doctor Kayt?”

The lioness was taken by surprise, but shook her head when she remembered how she had introduced herself out of habit. “No, doctor is my title. Kate is my name. Our race is called Human.”

“Hyu’man.” It gestured toward Emiko. “What is Emiko’s race?”

“She is also human.”

It gestured to the other adult. “Race?”

“Jeanette is human. We are all human.”

“Hu’man, ah human, yet not all look same.”

Kate nodded, seeming to notice the various anthro forms for the first time in days; she was already getting used to their anthropomorphisms just as people. “This is true, we do not. An accident during our journey caused us to change. It was not of our doing.”

“This journey … across the void?”

Kate looked up in surprise. “Yes,” she answered. “You know of such journeys?”

“Is how Zaizen here too.”

“You are not from this world?”

“No. Visit, as you.”

Kate fell silent as they walked. That meant this was no native creature, but an actual space alien! She knew she should be wary of danger from this unknown talking being, but she was strangely at ease walking beside it now and slowly relaxed without realizing it.

“Did you come here alone?”

“No. With others, but now I alone.”

“What happened?”

Zaizen stopped and gestured all around them. “Your words… Meet… mee’tee’or fall here. Outpost all but destroyed. Others perished.”

“I see. How did you survive the meteor impact?”

“Away far to survey, other place not here. Return find dead.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry also. Alone long.”

“How long have you been here alone?”

Zaizen stopped walking and looked perplexed, massaging the soft plant. “Know not your measure,” it said after a long pause. Again, it gestured to the crater walls surrounding this valley. “Before it fell.”

“We estimate that this crater was formed about twenty years ago.”

“Twenty?”

Kate held up both hands, each hand possessing five digits. “Four hands of this many fingers.”

Tucking the plant beneath its elbow, Zaizen held up all four of its hands, each possessing four digits for a total of sixteen. “This many add extra hand.”

Kate smiled. “Yes, that is twenty.”

“Years?”

“One year is the amount of time it takes for this world to travel once around its star.”

Comprehension showed on Zaizen’s alien face. “Meteor fell twenty and three of years ago.”

“That is a long time to be alone.”

“Yes.”

“Zaizen – if you don’t mind me asking, why did you come to this world?”

“To explore. To learn.

“Ah, scientific research.”

The Zaizen took a moment to muse the unfamiliar words, clutching the water plant up to its chest. It had learned some English for rudimentary conversation in a short amount of time, and was learning more by the minute, but deeper discussions were still difficult.

“Not know words.”

“Sorry. Research is learning. Scientific is learning how things work, why they are, how they are.”

“Yes, Zaizen here for research scientific.” It paused to think again. “Here twenty and six years.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Learning always.”

“Are there other intelligent beings on this world?”

“Intelligent?”

“Sapient, uh – personal beings, thinking as we do,” Kate tried to explain, gesturing between herself and the Sori, and then tapping her head. She did not know if the Sori brain was in its head, but she could not think of another way of pointing to her mind. Zaizen did not seem puzzled by the action, however.

“No. Find life lots, but not – intelligent. You first intelligent Sori finding here. Answer you now for me. Why Humans here? To find Sori?”

“Our world was over-crowded. We came here in hopes of starting new life in this place, and to prepare it for others to come later. We did not know of Sori. We did not know if any others lived here.”

“Why here?”

“We studied this place from our home, far away. It looked able to sustain us, so we began a journey long ago to get here.”

“What of accident during journey?”

Kate blinked, having already forgotten she had mentioned the reason why none of the humans looked like one another beyond that they were all bipedal animals.

“Do you know what radiation is?”

“Word, no.”

“Harmful elements out in space between stars, mostly unseen.”

“This I know.”

“The vessel we traveled in did not have sufficient protection against all radiation. It changed us, transformed us.” She held out her arms and let the Zaizen look her over. “We traveled with other life brought from our world, but the radiation mixed us together, changing us as humans into a blend of us and them. Because of these changes, we now call ourselves Human Furs — humans combined with our furry animals.”

“Understanding. Sori same problems first journeys among stars. Later correct.”

“You were able to correct such changes?”

“Yes. Many researches.”

The lioness felt a surge of hope. Would they be able to return to normal with this alien’s help?

“Do you know how to make the corrections?”

“Other Sori yes. I have not knowledge.”

Kate’s hope turned to disappointment, but she shook it off and changed topics. “Do you understand genders? Male and female?”

“Male are fathers, the seed makers. Female are mothers, child bearers like Emiko.”

Kate nodded. “Yes, that is correct. Of my kind, I am female.”

Zaizen stopped and turned its tail toward Kate, lifting it and gesturing beneath toward an area bare of its iridescent hair to a fleshy fold. “Also female, a mother-bearer.”

Kate swallowed and chuckled nervously to herself for her human sensibilities of modesty. Although she preferred to go without clothing over her fur, she had no intention of baring her private areas to this alien in return. Instead, she resumed walking and Zaizen accompanied her back in the direction they had come.

They talked for some time, but the discussion began to falter when language differences grew more pronounced and Zaizen’s words reverted to inarticulate sounds in her own tongue. The Sori came to a stop and looked down at the plant she held. Its pale green color was fading to brown, and its pliable surface was beginning to wrinkle; it had been out of the water too long.

Zaizen crouched near the lake shore and unwound the orb’s root from around her arm. She placed the plant back into the water, making sure that it stayed afloat, and then selected another. Once it was secure in her arm, the alien stood back up and looked over at the lioness.

“Now we to continue please.”

Kate gestured to the previous plant now bobbing quietly in the lake. “Will that one survive, or is it dead?”

“Not death yet. Water to revive in time.”

“That’s good to know. We discovered its properties, but only as a curiosity. We have not used it to communicate as you are doing.”

“Helpful tool.”

“Indeed.”

As they approached the gate, Kate saw that Ken, Carson, Emiko, Jeanette and the other workers had all gathered on the other side of the fence. The mayor’s finger was resting lightly upon the trigger guard of the rifle he held ready, but continued to hold it with the barrel skyward.

“Arion told us what happened,” he said when she and her companion approached the gate. “Kate, are you okay?” His voice held a note of concern, and the way he said it made her wonder if he might think she was under the alien’s influence.

She put her fingers in through the fence slats and put her face up close. She looked steadily into his eyes and said, “Hello, Ken. I am okay. No problems, no coercion, just getting to know our guest.”

Zaizen stepped up behind the lioness and mimicked her action, putting the fingers of three hands in through the fence slats with her face up close to look through them above Kate’s head.

“Hello, Ken,” she said with a familiar-enough smile. “I, Zaizen.”

“Hello Zaizen,” the mayor replied automatically, but although he had been told beforehand that the creature could speak some English, it still startled him to hear an accented voice coming from this animal. He looked up into the alien’s emerald-green eyes and could see the intelligence behind them, and the friendliness of a personality. No, he thought to himself, not an animal; another being.

“Thank to you for that,” Zaizen remarked with a warm expression.

“For… what?” he asked cautiously.

She held up the water plant so he could see, already knowing that he knew what it could be used for. “Kind thoughts of Zaizen.”

“Are you reading my mind?”

The Sori tilted her head, puzzled by his sudden guarded presence. “Mostly impressions and emotions projected,” she answered. “Some words also, only working when hold water orb, but not always much right since your mind not like mine.”

“I see.”

“Helps put meaning behind foreign words we speak.”

“Your English, our language, is improving,” Kate remarked.

“Practice,” Zaizen agreed. “Will get better. I am good with such, but some difficulty separating impressions from many minds, many layers.” She glanced over the group of Furs that faced her through the fence. “Some kind, some wary, cautious. Some… hostile.” At this last thought, her expression was troubled.

Kate glanced over at the workers standing behind the cougar. She knew some of them by name, others only in passing, and only vaguely how any of them might feel about this alien. That was the problem with having close to a hundred people in the camp. She looked up over her shoulder at her. “Our race has had many difficulties throughout our history. Sometimes it is hard to know who to trust.”

“Sad.”

Ken nodded. “Yes, it can be. Can we trust you?” He knew that any human being could answer that question while lying through their teeth, and he had no way of knowing if this alien could – or would – do the same, but he wanted to hear her say it aloud.

“I trust. You trust. We trust. It is better.”

Emiko came forward and reached up to lay her fingers on top of the alien’s fingers. “I trust you,” she said with a relaxed smile. “You had every opportunity to harm my child, yet you did not.”

Zaizen’s expression changed to one of shock. “Why harm childling? Innocent.”

“That’s true,” agreed the female squirrel. “No one should willingly harm an innocent child, but sometimes wild animals might take the opportunity to take a defenseless child as a meal.”

“I no animal.”

“Yes, and I know that now. Please forgive me.”

“Forgive?”

“I apologize for thinking you were a wild animal. I am sorry.”

“Need no apology. You not know my kind before now.”

Kate looked in through the slats at Ken. “May we come inside the fence?” she asked. “I think Zaizen qualifies as an ambassador for her people.”

“Am’bassa’door?”

“A representative of your race.”

The mayor looked up at the Sori and nodded. “Please join us, Ambassador Zaizen.”

The African lioness tapped the security code on her side of the fence control box and the gate unlocked. Ken pulled it open with a slight squeak of its hinges, wide enough so that the large alien could walk in with his deputy.

As soon as they were inside, Daisuke squeaked and stretched out his arms toward her. “Ride!” he said loudly.

Zaizen looked toward his mother, who grinned and held him out to her. The Sori picked up the young mouse with two hands and placed him upon her shoulders, at the base of her long neck. The child looked as pleased as he could be, but the alien looked back at Kate and gestured toward the bosom plant.

“This determine length of visit,” she said. The lioness nodded and then gave a quick explanation to Ken and the others how important it was to make communication possible between the two races, but it would depend upon how long the plant would last out of water.

“Wait here,” Ken responded. Leaving the small crowd at the gate, he trotted over to the gazebo and picked up a cooler containing several bottles of water that he pulled out and set on the bench seats. He brought the cooler back over with him, but continued on out through the gate. At the shore, he turned the empty cooler on its side and then scooped up a good amount of lake water, but not so much that he could not lift it. When it was upright, he picked up three of the globular plants, at once feeling the tingle at the base of his head, and set them inside.

He brought the cooler back in through the gate and then smiled up at the alien. “Hopefully these will last a while.”

“Perhaps.”

He and Carson took opposite end handles of the cooler and then carried it toward the electric cart they had brought over to the park area. Zaizen watched them walk away, feeling puzzled.

“Why take plants away?”

Kate looked up at her new friend, but did not answer the direct question. “Zaizen,” she began, “do you feel as if we have invaded your world?”

“Not my world. Only visiting, as you.”

“You were here first. Does it bother you that we have come to make this visit a little more permanent as our new home?”

“No.”

“If your people were still here, would they disapprove of our presence?”

“No, is more learning.”

The lioness gave the Sori an easy smile. “Would you like to see our town? We have named it Tellus to honor a figure from our distant legends.”

“Yes, learning more. I would like to see Tellus.”

“They took the water plants to a vehicle we can use to take them to Tellus with us.”

By this time, the park workers had gotten bored with the discussion, and while a talking alien was the highlight of the day, they all had work to do and were ready to get back to it. Without being told to do so, the crowd dispersed until only the mothers and their children were left in the play area.

Daisuke was returned to his mother and then the Sori followed Kate across the work area to the cart where Ken waited. Carson had departed with his workers, so now it was just the three of them.

There was some confusion trying to coax Zaizen up into the cart, especially as it had never been designed for dinosaur-ish anatomy, and although she might have fit her feet and tail in the cargo area with the cooler, she was simply too tall to fit beneath its canopy.

In the end, Kate and Zaizen opted to walk toward the town proper, as it really was not that far, and Ken followed beside them in the cart with Arion’s security drone keeping a watch from above.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Know Thy Neighbor

“Do you have a name for this world?” Ken asked the alien visitor as they approached the activity of Tellus Mater. “We call it Bellerophon, again to honor a name from our legends. We use that kind of naming a lot. For short, however, we just call it Belle.”

Zaizen smiled over at the cougar who drove the electric cart beside where she and Kate were walking. “We call this place,” she made a series of noises in her native language that sounded something like “Serallasion.”

“Can you tell us what that means?” Kate asked. “Does it have a significance?”

“World of trees and water. Is just description.”

Ken laughed aloud at this, warming up to the alien’s personality. Bellerophon did have an abundance of water and continents full of forests. It was fitting.

“What name is your home world?”

The cougar answered that one with a feline grin. “We call our world Earth, which is just another word for the soil beneath our feet. What is the word for your planet?”

Zaizen smiled back. “Sorini — the grass beneath our toes.”

“That’s appropriate!” Kate remarked. “Our world is Dirt. Yours is Grass.”

By the time they crossed the bridge over the river and approached the command tent, there was a small crowd waiting for them. The mayor parked the cart at the edge of the gathering and looked up at Rod Vincent, who walked over to him.

“What’s all this?” Ken asked his former first officer.

The spotted snow leopard gestured above them toward the hovering security drone. “Arion told us you were coming,” he explained. “We knew that we would be the aliens here on Belle, but I don’t think any of us actually expected to meet a real space alien. Everyone wants to see it.”

“Her – everyone wants to see her.”

“Whatever. We weren’t informed of her gender.”

The cougar stepped out of the cart and joined Kate and Zaizen. The gathered crowd was eager to see the talking dinosaur, but no one appeared to want to get too close and some even felt sudden instinctive fear at the sight of the creature. This was a space-faring being? It was a difficult thing to fathom, but none of them seemed to remember that as Furs, they probably did not resemble a technological race themselves, but more of a conglomeration of talking animals.

“Everyone, this is Ambassador Zaizen, a representative of the Sori,” Ken announced in carrying voice. “With the aid of a bosom plant, she has been able to converse with us somewhat in English. She comes from a planet they call Sorini, and her people were visitors to Belle just as we are, although they were here only for scientific research.”

“Were?” someone asked.

“Their science station was destroyed with all hands when the meteorite that formed our crater fell upon them. Only Zaizen survived because she was away elsewhere on the planet to survey. She has been here alone for over twenty years since that event, but came to investigate when she saw our activities.”

A large wolf stepped out from the crowd and looked up at the tall visitor. “Welcome, Ambassador,” Will Andresen said politely. “We are honored by your presence,” There were several in the crowd who adopted expressions of surprise on their furry faces. The red wolf had never been known to be polite to anyone.

“We collected a number of devices from your outpost,” the lupine engineer continued, “but we have been unable to determine most of their functions. We hope you don’t mind us examining them.”

Zaizen lowered her head so that she did not tower over everyone there to see her. “Not mind,” she said, still clutching the water plant. “Most stop working long ago when power cells deplete. No could repower them.” This was the first time this group had heard her accented voice, but it amazed them more than her mouth shape was able to form the words of understandable English, even if her perception of syntax needed work. “I taken tools I use. Left rest unusable.”

“Were you here to make a home for your people?” Dr. Kazama ventured to ask. The alien looked at the river otter and shook her head in the manner she had learned from watching Kate.

“No desire to home away from Sorini. Here only to study Serallasion.”

“What are serallasion?” asked the botanist Bali Manhigh. “Are they plants or animals?”

Kate answered the Samoyed’s questions. “Serallasion is their name for Bellerophon, this world.”

“Would you be willing to share with us what you have discovered about this planet?” Rod asked. “We haven’t been here long and are still learning even the simple things about this place.”

“Yes, agree to exchange information between,” Zaizen replied. “Much interest in you race too. Take time.”

“I’m sure it will,” said the snow leopard, “but we have plenty of time to discuss it with you.”

“Where is your space ship?” asked a red panda. “We didn’t see any when we came here.”

“Voidship destroyed in orbit revolution by meteorite before hitting this place; pieces burned up or fall into the sea. Airship used here has no power, lost crash in forest. Travel feet only now.”

Although most everyone who heard this assumed her atmospheric flyer was another technological wonder, there were several who visualized a steampunk airship merely from her terminology.

“How long have your people traveled space?” someone else asked.

“Before you all continue to interrogate our guest,” Ken said in interruption, “I suggest we all go into the galley tent before it starts raining on us.”

Indeed, the sky had been slowly darkening, although the conditions would simply dump rain on them without the threat of a storm. Leading by example, the cougar walked over to the larger tent nearby and went inside. The Sori had to duck down to fit in beneath the door flap, but there was more headroom inside, even for her.

Chef Rocky had not been a part of the crowd outside, and had heard nothing of the alien visitor coming to town, so when he saw the long-necked, dinosaur-thing in his galley, he nearly fainted from the sight thinking a local wild animal had wandered in. He had to hold onto a chair just to stay upright.

“Please, not to be afraid,” Zaizen said to the opossum, walking over to him. “I am friend, just visitor, strange to you I know.”

Hearing English from it, Rocky gasped and sat down – completely missing the chair. He hit the flooring hard on his tail, but he suddenly felt himself pulled back up to his feet. Incredulously, he stared at the alien hands that helped him up, and then almost with a will of its own, he saw his own hand reach out and lightly stroke the iridescent fur of the strange arm.

He looked up into the Sori’s calm face with awe. “Thank… thank you,” he said after a hard swallow.

“Wel-come to help.”

The cook finally got control of himself and felt his feet firm beneath him. Wiping his hands on his apron, he looked around at the crowd that had gathered around them and gave them a sheepish smile. If they were not afraid of this… friend, he did not have to be either. True to his serving nature, he gave her a slight tilt of his head and asked, “Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

Zaizen looked at him and mimicked his head tilt. “Long time since I eat. I will try something you may have.”

Rocky grinned widely. “Wait here. I will be right back with something you might like.”

Kate reached out a hand to the opossum. “Wait!” she said. “We don’t know if she can eat our food, or what she even likes.” She turned back to the alien and looked up at her. “What do the Sori eat?” she asked.

Zaizen shifted the water plant from one hand to another, re-wrapping the root tendril around her other wrist. Thinking through the words and impressions she got from those around her, she answered, “Some plants, some birds, some small animals.” She opened her mouth and gestured to the teeth of an omnivore she possessed. “Can eat things many, but not all, only some.”

“That’s the same with us; some things, but not others.”

“I have some vegetables she can try,” Rocky said. “Small pieces of grilled beef and pork, and some cheese too.” When he disappeared back into the depths of his kitchen, the African lioness went with him to explain who and what their visitor was, and why she was in his galley.

Zaizen was about to follow them, but Andresen asked, “We know your people are technological. You have an interstellar ship, can build houses composed of both technical and organic materials, and use hand tools powered by capacitor cells. Your civilization on your home world must be wondrous to behold.”

The Sori folded all three of her free hands up to her chest and dipped her head, her ear cups folded. “Missing Sorini,” she said sadly. “Away long time. Living too simple. Missing tech-ology… and other Sori.”

“Do you have family back on Sorini?” Jessica Heald asked softly.

Zaizen looked over at the red panda and nodded, absently rubbing the edge of the abdominal pouch beneath her fur. “Mate and daughter.”

“How long ago did your daughter hatch?” Dr. Kazama asked.

Zaizen suddenly laughed out loud, and although she was greatly amused by the question, the sound was almost disconcerting to furmen ears. “Sori not lay egg,” she explained patiently. “Sori birth to childlings.”

The river otter felt his face flush beneath his short pelt of fur. “Oh, I am sorry!” he said in a rush. “I meant no offense – I didn’t know!”

The alien did not seem offended, but was genuinely curious. “Why you think we hatch?”

The doctor swallowed and looked around sheepishly before he returned his gaze up at her kind face. “There was no disrespect intended,” he began, “but there is a resemblance of your form to a creature in our distant history called a dinosaur, which was known to reproduce by laying eggs. I know you are not related to anything on our world, but you seemed familiar. My apologies, Ambassador.”

“Understanding. Daughter Kainah birthed twenty and nine years ago.”

“How long have you been away from her?”

“Twenty and six Serallasion years.”

“She was only three when you left,” Jessica remarked. “You didn’t get to see her grow up.”

“No. She to have own mate and childling now.”

Seeing that the questions were troubling the alien, Rod tried to direct the conversation elsewhere. “Is there anything on your world that resembles us?”

“Your forms are many,” the alien reminded him, “but there are some similar among you. None can talk to Sori.” She held up the water plant and added, “Not have Serallasion orb on Sorini to help.”

“Does that mean your animals like us can talk too?” Will asked. “Are there other intelligent races on Sorini?”

“None like you.” She searched her memory for a word used in a conversation with the lioness. “None … sapient – personal beings like Sori or you.” She paused for a moment and then said, “Kate said your many forms were not natural, but caused by changes during your void travel.”

“This is true,” Dr. Kazama confirmed. “We were all one people, but radiation in space combined our bodies with the other creatures we brought with us.” He held out his arms. “I am a human combined with an otter.” He pointed to others around him. “He was a human combined with a wolf. She was human combined with a red panda. He was combined with a leopard. These were all other creatures that were asleep on our ship, but something in space changed us.”

Zaizen nodded. “Understanding. Same happened when Sori first ventured into void. Long history past.”

“Are you a blend with another creature?” Will asked. “Were the other Sori that came here with you all combined as we were?”

“No, am true Sori. Many researches made way to protect against such changes. Voidships safe now, no more changes.”

“Did the Sori find a way to reverse the changes, or just protect future space travelers?” the lupine engineer pressed.

“Not for many years, but did reverse combination errors. Now just need protect against.”

The red panda stepped closer, her hands clasped together hopefully. “Can you change us back to the way we were?” There were several gasps among the crowd, suddenly sharing Jessica’s hopeful plea.

“Zaizen cannot,” the alien replied. “I do not have that knowledge. Other Sori do. No other Sori here.” There was an overall feeling of disappointment in the air that she felt even without the aid of the water plant. “Cannot change the change. Sorry.”

“Well,” Dr. Kazama said flippantly, “we’re no worse off than we were before you told us. We are all different beings now, but our people are relatively healthy in spite of it.”

“Would like to have seen what true Human look like.”

“We have pictures that we can show you,” Rod replied.

Everyone looked up in unison toward the roof above them. The rain had started falling heavily on the tent, which made hearing more difficult.

Zaizen looked over the group as if a new thought occurred to her. “My world is Sorini, my people are Sori,” she said in a raised voice. “Your world is Earth. Are your people Earthy?”

That garnered chuckles of amusement from the crowd as if she had called them dirty. Rod smiled up at her. “We have called ourselves Earthlings, and sometimes Terrans.”

“Terrans? Have not heard this word among you.”

“It comes from our word ‘terra’, which basically refers to the ground under our feet.”

“Like Earth?”

“Yes,” the leopard said with a surprise that she would know the origin of that word. “Earth actually means the same thing, just a different word. We have also called our world Terra. Among ourselves, the names are interchangeable.”

“Understanding.”

“Now, let’s see if we have anything you like,” Rocky said, cheerfully carrying in a red plastic tray with several paper-plated items. “These are only bite-sizes, but if you find something you like, I can bring out more.” There were cuts of vegetables, meats and cheeses as promised, each skewered with a wooden toothpick. He set them on a table near the alien and once he was sure he had her attention, he picked up one bit of cheese by the toothpick and then put it in his mouth, slipping the toothpick back out to show she was not to eat that.

Zaizen looked over the plates with interest and her single nostril quivered as she took in the various scents. She was not sure about some of the items, but out of politeness chose one that smelled enticing. She grasped one small toothpick as the opossum had done and lifted a square of meat to her mouth. She ate the meat and set the toothpick back on its plate, silently chewing the morsel. The flavor was good, so she looked over the selection and chose another.

After several moments, she had chosen some of the meats, but left others alone; likewise with the vegetables, although she did not try any of the cheeses. There had not been enough of any of them to fill her belly, but the chef had explained that it was only a sample tray and she could have more of any of them if she wanted.

“Thank you,” she told him, “but I hold from more until I know if stomach can digest.”

“That’s probably a wise decision,” Rocky replied. “What have you been eating here that your stomach can handle?”

“Most sully eggs, common ground plants of crater, and little chitners in the forest. Others when can catch.”

“Sully eggs are from birds?”

“Most tasty.”

“Chitners?”

She thought a moment for the right word. “Rodents.”

“Do you cook your food or eat it raw?”

“Some and some.”

The Sori then made a face, and accompanied by a retching sound within its throat, threw up what she had just eaten surprisingly quick. Unfortunately, it all came out on top of the sample tray. Numerous faces turned away in disgust, and a couple even darted back outside into the rain to throw up their own foods, but Rocky calmly pulled out a towel from his apron pocket and draped it over the tray.

“Sorries,” Zaizen murmured with one had to her mouth and another up to her throat. “Not know which samples did that.”

“Our apologies,” Kate said with a hand resting on one of the alien’s elbows. “We should have known you might not be able to stomach something from our world, having never been there.”

Zaizen dipped her head. “Same reaction to Serallasion foods try first time after outpost food lost. Had to learn which could eat, same with yours.”

“I’m sorry my selection was not to your liking,” Rocky remarked. “Did any of it taste good to you, or did you eat it just to be polite?”

The Sori turned to look at him. “No sorry. Some tasty tasty, others taste only some. Will learn.”

“In the meantime, is there anything we can get for you to eat that you know you can have?” Ken asked from the side. The opossum was turning to take away the covered tray, his eyes watering from its new odorous contents, but he stopped to hear the answer to the cougar’s query.

Zaizen pointed toward the door flap. “Ground covers, lots in crater,” she said. “Can eat, has nutrition.”

“That’s something we can’t eat,” Kate remarked. “No nutritional value at all for us.”

“Crater weed, it is!” Ken replied. He moved out the door into the rain, and now that he no longer carried the rifle, he dropped to all fours and darted out to gather some fresh vegetation for their guest. Rocky took the tray away and only then did some of the crowd return.

While the mayor was away and Zaizen was looking better, some of the questioning began again.

“Where have you been living?” Rod wanted to know. “We didn’t see signs of habitation inside your outpost.”

“Outpost structure weak beneath tree on top, not safe. Could collapse with Zaizen inside. I have several abodes around area to stay as needed.” Feeling it was her turn to ask something, she reached out to pull lightly on Jessica’s gingham top. It was one of the more colorful cloths that Arion had printed for them and the red panda had also added a few items for decoration. There were only a few in the crowd that wore anything besides the hygienic shorts.

“What is?” the alien asked. “Covers for hair?”

Jessica glanced at the iridescent hair that covered the Sori’s body. Although in need of brushing, it otherwise appeared to have a silky texture that was not too different than the fur of a Yorkshire Terrier she once had during college. The alien’s body had no clothing on it whatsoever, yet she was fully covered.

“Before the… accident that happened during our space travel,” the red panda answered, “our human bodies were not covered in fur as we are now. We needed clothing like this to cover our bodies, mostly for protection against the elements.” She did not feel the need to try to explain nudity taboos to an alien that was naturally hairy.

“Understanding. Why still wear now?”

Kate laughed aloud at this. “It’s mostly out of habit,” she answered. “There are some of us who would shed all our clothing given the chance, but the habits of our race have prevented it. Habit can be a strong influence.”

“This I know.”

“If not for the guys, I would shed all my clothes,” Jessica confessed.

“You wouldn’t hear complaints from any of the guys,” Andresen quipped with a smirk.

“Guys? Not getting translation.”

“Guys are males,” the panda scoffed. “Females get too much attention from the males when we show ourselves to them without clothing.”

“Human custom of cloth puzzling.”

“Before our changes, humans were naked without clothes, with no fur and not enough hair to cover us,” Rod said. Then with a smile, he added, “Naked humans cause too many children!”

The Sori continued to look puzzled, but Kate waved a hand to get her attention as the sound of rainfall lessened. “No doubt many of our customs will be confusing to you,” she said. “It’s probably best to discuss something other than our breeding practices.”

“Wish to see differences between Human male and female.” The room went completely silent and the Sori looked around the room. “Request?”

Kate cleared her throat and looked amused. “Baring our genitals to others is a private matter and not done openly,” she said. Then with a feline grin, “If there are any guys or gals here who would agree to satisfy our guest’s curiosity in a private setting, see me later and we can set up a personal session. The room remained quiet with no volunteers. The lioness shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Zaizen, “but that request may have to wait for another time.”

“Not understanding, but can wait proper time.” Then without discussing it further, the Sori turned her tail toward the small crowd and raised it so all could see her sex. “I am female,” she announced. “I bear childlings for my race,” and then she turned back around, hooking two thumbs into the edge of her marsupial pouch, “and care for them here.” She pulled it open, revealing a single teat within for nursing her young. She looked around the room, trying to discern the physical differences between the furman males and females, but all she saw were expressions of shock upon their faces. “All breeding organs are inside for protection, emerging for both only mating. Some Serallasion living things have them external. Strange to Sori, but have witnessed breeding for researches.”

“Our alien is a voyeur,” someone muttered in amusement. Zaizen looked to Kate, not getting a good translation of that word, but the lioness offered up no explanation.

“How many children does a Sori family have?” Jessica asked, attempting to divert the conversation somewhat. “As unchanged humans, we can have many, but usually choose from one to four or five at the most.”

“One childling each mated pair.”

“Do you have one or many partners?” someone else asked.

“One mate for life of partners. If dies, mate to choose another, must have another childling.”

Ken Robeson returned then, pulling a plastic trash sack behind him. He shook himself off vigorously, causing those near the door to scatter from flinging raindrops, and then he moved through the crowd toward the alien. He set the sack upon a table and then opened it so that the Sori could see that it was filled with freshly-cut crater weed.

Zaizen reached in, pulled out a strand, and then immediately began stripping the leaves from the vine with her omnivorous dental work.

Rocky returned before she finished eating and promptly looked at the weeds in a new light, wondering if there was some way he could prepare the vegetation other than raw. The crater weeds were not poisonous, but there was no nutrition in it for the furmen races either; perhaps it could be made into a garnish or added to a salad.

When the Sori had finished eating all she wanted, she asked for some water. Rocky procured a bowl, thinking her wider mouth might not work well with a cup, and she drank from it without seeming to be offended. She wiped her mouth with the fur of an arm and handed the bowl back to the opossum.

“It will be nightfall soon,” Ken announced. “Would you like to sleep in our town? We have plenty of room.”

“Thanking, no. I will sleep at the lake, please.” She held up her water plant and they all noted that it was beginning to shrivel.

“We brought more of those if you would like to stay up later.”

“Sleep with darkness. Save water orbs for tomorrow. Can use then.”

“Yes, we can. Do you have a camp at the lake? It’s really no trouble if you want to stay here tonight.”

Zaizen gave him a gentle smile. “Not worry, I will be fine.”

Kate put a hand on the alien’s arm. “I will walk back out there with you,” she said. “We can visit more tomorrow, as much as you want.”

“I would like that.”

The crowd began to disperse and numerous small conversations sprang up about the new visitor, but before Kate and Zaizen could leave, two furmen approached.

Piale Bonavita and Rex Bletchingdon looked up at her greater height. “Good evening, Ambassador,” said the white arctic fox.

“Yes, this has a good evening.”

Piale gave the tan Labrador beside her a shy look and then glanced back at their guest. “Rex and I would like to volunteer for your private inspection,” she said in a voice that hopefully would not carry to others still in the tent. The canine male could not seem to stop swallowing and looked around nervously.

Kate suppressed her surprise and tried to keep from smiling when she looked over at the Sori.

“Is proper time?” the alien asked.

“It can be,” Piale answered, “but not here. Dr. Kate, is there a place we can go to do this?”

The lioness nodded in private amusement. “There is an empty tent near here. You can use that to show her all she wants to see – or all that you’re willing.”

Rex leaned close to the young fox and put his mouth right up into an ear. In a whisper meant only for her hearing, he said, “I just hope she doesn’t want to watch us… breed.”

Zaizen smiled and nodded. Either she heard his words, or the water plant was still viable enough to transmit his intent. “Yes, would like see Human breeding,” she said with interest.

Beneath his breath, Rex muttered, “Yup, she’s a voyeur…”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Deadly Approach

The next morning, Zaizen waited patiently by the Lake Gate, having had a good night’s sleep and a satisfying breakfast. Although there were no children at the playground this early in the day, workers had already returned to resume their work, but none of them paid any attention to her.

In the distance, she could see a trail of dust as one of the human-made vehicles traveled in her direction. The shape of the conveyance did not look like the one they had tried to get her into the day before, but it was coming right toward her. Either it was someone coming out to greet her, or it was someone else there to go out through the gate she just happened to be standing at. During her visit the previous day, she had seen a number of their transports, both aerial and ground-based, but she could not remember if this was one she had seen.

The flat-bed truck pulled up to a stop near the gate. Seated behind the controls was a tawny lynx in shorts. He shut off the open-air vehicle and then stepped out to face her. This was no one that she had met previously, so she tilted her head in curiosity and held onto a fresh water plant when he approached the gate lock.

The feline looked up at her and gave her a brief nod. “Good morning,” he said.

“Yes, good morning,” the Sori responded courteously. “I am Zaizen. Who are you?”

The lynx looked surprised. He had heard that the alien could speak some English with the help of the local bosom plant that she held, but her few words were spoken with a better syntax than he had been informed from her previous visit. He had no way of knowing that she had stayed up well after dark practicing her words from listening to the different humans she had heard talking. She was used to going to sleep with the darkness and staying up late was out of her habit, but she really wanted to have good conversations with her new acquaintances. Could she count them as friends after only a few hours? She was unsure of that, but after so many years of loneliness, she had enjoyed having others to talk to, even if they were alien to everything she had ever known and spoke a different language.

“My name is Angelo. I am here to take you back into camp if you are willing to ride with me in the back of a truck.”

She looked over at the vehicle and noted that if she got up into the back of it, she should be able to fit this time. There was no overhead canopy and the bed was sufficiently large enough for her feet and tail to fit in well enough. “Yes, thank you. I will ride with you.”

The feline unlocked the gate and allowed her to come in, though he kept a cautious eye on the alien creature, wary of potential trouble. He was unaware that she picked up on his feelings, and although she knew he was suspicious of her, there were other, more personal feelings emanating from the troubled Fur.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” she told him as she followed him to the truck. “I mean no harm to you or your people.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

Without coaxing, the alien stepped up into the back of the vehicle and the suspension dipped with the weight of its cargo. She put two of her hands onto the roll bar behind the front seats and made sure her feet were steady. She had ridden in Sori-made vehicles before and was familiar with the motion of travel, but she was personally unsure about this one.

Angelo climbed in behind the wheel and started up the truck, watching the alien with a side eye to make sure she was not startled by the whine of its electric motor. She merely looked down at him with a look of obvious amusement and it was then he remembered what he had been told about the water plant she carried with her.

The lynx gave her a smirk and then put the truck into gear, although he kept their speed low on the uneven terrain. Zaizen held on and shifted her gaze out across the park to the ground workers. They all watched as the iridescent, hairy dinosaur was taken away, but they were too far for the orb to convey their feelings. She looked back in the direction of Tellus Mater and felt a personal excitement at resuming discussions with the human Furs.

***

Zaizen gripped the top rail of an animal paddock with two of her hands and studied the cattle passively staring back at her. Although she had seen horned creatures before, she had never seen anything that resembled these bovines and she was suitably impressed.

“Despite their horns, these… cattle… are docile?”

“Yes, it comes from specific breeding for multiple benefits, but that is one of the reasons we brought them.”

“For more than food stock?”

“That’s correct,” Kate answered. “Does it bother you that we eat other animals?”

“We must all eat something. Understand this. I am fond of eating most aquatis, myself.”

“Aquatis?”

“You would call them fishes and other aquatic organisms.”

Kate nodded, turned away and leaned back against the paddock. She had been playing tour guide for the alien for most of the day and they had worn out three of the bosom plants in the process. For most official functions around the fledgling town, the lioness had been wearing a lightweight top for several weeks, but for today she wore only a pair of dark brown shorts with a strap across the top of her tail to keep it in place. Although most of the women who had thicker fur had fallen to wearing only shorts due to the warm tropical weather, everyone had grown used to seeing her with a top that was little more than a swimming wrap.

Seeing her without it today had garnered some looks of surprise from those who saw her, even if her fur gave her chest full coverage. Having once been completely devoid of all body hair, she enjoyed having her own personal fur coat and had few qualms against being on display.

“What else can I show you?” she asked. “We’ve looked at the livestock, gardens, the buildings we’re constructing, our manufacturing printers, where we sleep, where we eat, and you’ve gotten to talk to a great number of people concerning their tasks.”

The alien absently brushed a lock of her long, iridescent hair from her forehead and then scratched at one of her fuzzy, cup-like ears. “Have enjoyed all this, but would like to sit and talk more about your dirt world, your peoples and your artificial person.”

The lioness laughed about her “dirt world”, but knew the visitor had been told that was what the name of their planet meant. Instead of making an issue of it, she brushed it off and led her companion to a canopy that had been set up out near the paddocks for no other reason than to provide a source of shade during the day or shelter during the daily rains. There was a couple of lawn chairs and a small folding table set up beneath it, but Kate set one chair aside so that Zaizen could settle onto the grass beside her. The Sori did not seem to need anything like a chair, she just squatted until her hindquarters and thick tail rested on the ground and she seemed to be comfortable.

Kate had carried her tablet with her during the tour and she set this onto the tabletop. Zaizen looked at it and then gestured with one clawed finger. “Your devices are fascinating,” she said casually. “We have no… vid’eo, and the program that lets you talk to your voidship in orbit as if it was another human is outstanding.”

“The program’s name is Arion and we treat him as just another one of us. Not only does he relay information and maintain a database of our knowledge, he can think for himself and can also be a good friend.”

“This Arion is self-aware?”

“Yes, Ambassador Zaizen, I am,” said the SI’s voice from Kate’s tablet. His smiling face appeared on the flat screen and Kate picked it up to hand it over to the alien. The Sori was hesitant to take the device, but she made sure her claws were retracted when she accepted it. She held it so the screen was facing her and she smiled in obvious fascination. She then turned it over, looking at the back side of the tablet, but Arion’s voice issued from the device’s set of speakers.

“I am over here, Ambassador. On the other side.”

The alien laughed with delight and turned the tablet so that it faced her again. “The Sori would have never programmed anything such as this.”

“And what reason is that?” he asked.

“Never think of it. We have some… pictures, but none that can move or talk back to us. They are used only to record memories for history.”

“You do not use video communication among yourselves?” Kate asked, holding up her techwatch. “To talk to one another?”

“No, voices only to one another. We do have recording devices to note findings that we can return to Sorini, but pictures use too much storage so used sparingly.” She smiled and added, “We are very good at verbal descriptions of what we discover.”

“From what I have monitored of your previous conversations,” Arion remarked, “your conversational English has improved greatly in just a day or two. Is this because of the water plant you carry?”

“Some, but not all. We have several languages on Sorini and I have been a skillful student of them all. The water orb helps me to understand the ‘intent’ of the Human words I hear, but my own skills have taught me to use what I have heard. I might be able to hold a passable conversation now without the orb, but your people continue to use words and phrases I have not learned.”

“It’s amazing that you could learn our language so well in only a couple of days,” Kate mused in appreciation. “Do you use these orbs often on Sorini?”

“No, orb plants only grow here on Serallasion, discovered by accident.”

“Ambassador Zaizen,” Arion began, “would you be willing to teach me your language? You said you had several languages, and so do we, but like the English you have learned, I would like to learn the primary language that you speak when among your own people.”

The alien considered this a moment and then nodded in the manner of the humans. Nodding as an affirmative response was not an action used by the Sori, but she had learned quickly that these Furs use it among themselves frequently, just as a gentle shake of the head meant a negative response for them.

“Yes, program Arion. I think I would like that as an equal exchange of information. My task on this world is to learn and gather data, but teaching others can be as beneficial and satisfying.”

“First off, you do not need to address me as a program. You may simply call me Arion.”

“Likewise, Friend Arion. You do not need to address me as Ambassador; that is a term assigned to me by your Humans. For you, I am simply Zaizen.”

“Agreed, then. Shall we begin?”

Kate watched the alien with interest as she and Arion began language lessons beginning with the basics, but after a while she grew bored with it all. She learned a few of the Sori’s primary words in the process, but she excused herself, leaving her tablet with Zaizen.

***

Over the next two days, the alien was seen wandering around Tellus Mater unescorted. She stopped to talk with anyone she met, asking questions about their work, their world and personal aspects of their various furmen bodies. Most were willing to visit with her, but there were others who shunned her completely, suspicious of her motives for gathering so much information about them, their town and their capabilities. There were several who complained to the mayor for giving her too much freedom and suggested she be barred from entering the perimeter gates unescorted for the sake of everyone’s safety.

Ken patiently listened to each concern that was brought to him, and in turn he passed them on to his command staff. Kate was completely unconvinced that Zaizen presented any kind of a threat, and argued with anything said against the alien.

As the chief of security, or as the townsfolk now called him sheriff, Ethan Edwards gave each complaint serious consideration. He had met the alien and found her personable, but as she was an alien, he could not be sure that she did not have ulterior motives. What if her story of being left alone for twenty years was not just a ruse to get into their good graces? Were there more of her kind hiding out under the rainforest, just waiting for the chance to overrun the human’s new town?

As Ethan’s appointed deputy, Rod Vincent sided with his boss on the side of caution, but he was one who had met and enjoyed his discussions with the Sori. Will Andresen, the town’s chief engineer for all construction projects, had only briefly met with Zaizen, and while he thought she was nice, he had not been around her enough to really form an opinion either way.

Zaizen had agreed to allow Dr. Kazama and Nick Ansara give her a physical examination, so long as it was non-invasive, and while they found scans of her anatomy vastly fascinating, they saw nothing that would present a threat. Like many of the Furs, the alien’s teeth were those of an omnivore rather than primarily a carnivore or herbivore, and after having witnessed her earlier reaction to eating Terran-based meat, neither of them had conjured up fears that the alien was there to harvest any of them for food.

Dr. Fernando had even had a session with the Sori, and although he had insisted that their conversation be made without the use of the water plant, even he was convinced that she was just what she claimed to be — although he had to admit in private that an alien’s mind might not work the same as theirs, and it was possible that deciphering her intent could have been mistaken. Perhaps he should have been the one holding the bosom plant while talking with her.

Although not a part of the command staff, Dean Ruston’s ears heard more than a few unkind remarks concerning the alien’s presence, and he was afraid that his earlier fears might be coming true and forming in their minds.

In the end, however, it was Zaizen herself who solved the issue for them late one afternoon. Although she had greatly enjoyed the enthralling discoveries visiting with the humans in their town, she felt it was time to leave them to their tasks and return to her home to tend to other things. She promised not to be a stranger and to stop back in from time to time, but she had been away long enough.

Despite the others’ concerns that she was gathering information on them, Kate convinced Ken to allow Zaizen to take a techwatch with her so that she could stay in contact, and it was an unspoken agreement that Arion could also keep tabs on her through it.

No longer carrying a water plant, the Sori had spent her last day with the furmen using her newly-learned English, and it was on that day that the techwatch was presented to her. She was ecstatic to have the device that she had been taught to use, and Arion had agreed to talk with her as she wished, in addition to relaying any message she might have to Dr. Kate.

“How long will it take you to travel back to your home?” the lioness asked when Zaizen announced it was time to get going.

“Two days to cross the crater and then another to traverse the sloped wall up the trail to the mountain pass,” she answered. “Then another day to reach the first of my abodes within the rift, although I will not stop there for more than just a rest. I have another abode past the outpost dome under the rainforest canopy that is the true home I have used since stranded on Serallasion. It is several days’ journey, but I am patient and in no hurry.”

“Can we offer you a ride in a Flitter?” Ken asked courteously. “It would be faster than going on foot, faster even than on the back of a flatbed truck, and you could be back at your home within hours instead of days.”

The alien looked across the field toward the landing strip and frowned. She had seen their various flying vehicles, but was hesitant to trust their technology since it operated on principles far different than what the Sori had developed.

She brushed a lock of her iridescent hair away from her face and looked uncertain, an expression that Kate had come to recognize after spending so much time with her. “The Flitter is safe,” the lioness assured her new friend. “I can ride back with you, if you’d like.”

After moments of internal decision, the Sori lowered her neck toward the Fur. “I admit some apprehension, but I will choose to trust your flitter if you will accompany me. However, we will not go to my home, but you may take me as far as the outpost.”

Kate had the sudden feeling that Zaizen did not want them to know the location where she lived. Were there actually more of her people waiting there for her to return and report all she had seen, or was she just concerned for her safety? She dismissed the former notion, feeling as if that was influenced by the others who were suspicious of the alien.

“Agreed,” she replied with a smile. “I will get one of our pilots to take us.”

“May I have your attention please?” a voice interrupted from her techwatch.

“Yes, Arion. What is it?”

“I have detected a meteorite approaching Bellerophon, primarily composed of nickel iron and measuring approximately three hundred feet in diameter.”

The lioness and the alien exchanged worried looks. “How close do you calculate that it will come to the planet?”

“The meteorite already seems to be caught in the planetary gravity well. Estimates are difficult to project at this time, but there is an eighty percent chance that it may impact on the surface.”

Zaizen let out a wail that Kate had never heard her make before and there was a panic stricken look to her eyes. This was also the first time she had seen the alien exhibit any kind of distress at all.

“Aei!” the Sori wailed. “Killed my people! Left me alone!” She looked at the lioness and made a panting noise as one of her hands convulsed and squeezed the water plant; its membrane collapsed against her with a splash of dirty liquid. “Made crater! Can do again!”

“Do you have anything you can use to destroy it?” Ken’s voice emanated also from the techwatch. The SI must have included him or others on the call.

“Negative, sir. Arion-1 was not equipped with defensive weaponry. I can do nothing to destroy, nor even deflect the meteorite from its path. All I can do is monitor its progress and relay it to you.”

“How much time do we have before it enters the atmosphere?” Will Andresen asked, confirming Kate’s supposition of a conferenced discussion. “Do we have time to dig underground shelters?”

“Estimated time to the upper atmosphere is approximately twenty-one hours,” Arion replied, “but even if that was enough time to construct shelters for ninety-six people, it is doubtful they would withstand the force of impact, as the very existence of this crater and the surrounding ring of mountains will attest.”

“Ninety-six?” Kate asked. “There are ninety-five of us.”

“I was including Ambassador Zaizen.”

“We die!” wailed the Sori, falling back onto rudimentary English. She folded her ears against her head and shook all over.

“Please be reminded that as I have not yet calculated an exact trajectory and projected a possible impact site, there is no real reason to assume that it will hit this exact spot out of the whole planet. Eighty percent of Bellerophon is covered by seas and it is more probable that it will vaporize a great deal of saltwater than dry land.”

“An iron rock of that size can still cause major damage from a distance, be it from the ocean or another continent,” Andresen reminded them. “A massive tsunami could flow inland for hundreds of miles, and even debris thrown up into the air from an impact could cause a decrease in global temperatures, creating a threat to our crops and livestock, not to mention ourselves.”

“Is true! Much colder for years until settled, only then climate normal again. Zaizen has hair, but not made for the cold, almost perished! Many food plants and animals perished!”

“Do we have enough time to evacuate everyone up to the ship until the danger has passed?” Ethan suggested hopefully. “There’s room in the hold for everyone now that everything’s been unloaded.”

“Travel times to and from orbit using the shuttles packed with personnel, there would not be enough time to get everyone off the planet in time,” Andresen retorted.

“So there’s nothing we can do but wait and watch?” Ken asked.

“I am afraid so, sir,” Arion confirmed. “I am devoting full resources to monitor and scan the approaching meteorite, making constant calculations.”

“Keep us informed,” the cougar directed, “and recall all personnel to the galley tent so we can inform everyone of this latest event.”

“Right away, sir.” Coinciding with the end of the conversation, all personnel tech devices sounded an alarm tone reserved only for emergencies with a simple message for everyone to gather immediately.

Kate reached out a hand and rubbed the alien’s long body hair along her shoulder, hoping to soothe the Sori. “We can take you home as soon as our meeting is over,” she said.

“No need that now. No safer there than here. I will die with Dr. Kate.”

“That’s only if it hits here,” the lioness reminded her. “There’s still a danger, but it may not be instant death.”

“Can hopes to survive.”

***

An hour later, the whole of the town personnel had gathered under the large galley tent, where Rocky and Victoria were passing around drinks and snacks to the assembled hoard. A raised platform had been hastily constructed, and upon it Kate’s tablet was set up to project Arion’s holographic image for all to see. Ken Robeson stood on one end of the platform with his hands raised and his tail swishing behind him to draw everyone’s attention. Arion’s figure stood at the center, quietly awaiting his cue to speak with his hands casually behind his back.

Only basic information of the situation had been passed along to the crowd, so once there was reasonable order in the tent, Ken gestured toward the Synthetic Intelligence. Arion looked out over the crowd at the worried and concerned expressions from a veritable zoo staring back at him.

“The meteorite may not present as much of a danger as first feared,” he began. “Bellerophon is moving in its orbit around the sun, and while the attraction of Belle’s gravity is still pulling the meteorite toward this planet, the intersection of the two is not looking favorable for an impact.”

There were a few cheers and even a few cries of relief at this news, but Ken quickly asked, “Is there a probability that the meteorite might hit Arion-1 in orbit? That’s what happened to the Sori voidship stationed here.”

“My analysis of the meteorite’s trajectory is more accurate than it was before, and no, sir – it will pass me by several hundred miles. It should also miss both of Bellerophon’s small moons, and while it will get very close, its angle of descent will be shallow and it may do no more than skim the upper mesosphere. The only real danger might be to one or two of my orbiting satellites. I have already pulled two replacements from inventory and will prepare them for launch should that turn out to be the case.”

“When will we know for sure what the meteorite’s going to do?” someone from the crowd asked.

“Every passing moment yields more information to add to variable equations, but I will not have accurate projections until approximately eight hours before its arrival. Until that time, I will broadcast any updates I have to all personnel devices.”

“When does it arrive?”

“At this time, the projection is for 0532 tomorrow morning, local Belle time.”

“What are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Emma Bonavita called out.

Ken stepped forward and gestured casually in the direction of the town under construction. “Since Arion has conjectured that the meteorite will do little more than graze the atmosphere, I suppose we can all go back to business as usual.”

“He said he wouldn’t know until it’s almost upon us! Things could change between now and then!”

“Yes, and he said he would inform all of us if there were any changes.”

“What if one of those changes is that it’s going to come down on top of us?” the bear shot back. “We can’t all evacuate to the ship even if we started right now!”

The cougar laid his ears back. “Even if the meteorite changes its track and decides to come down right on top of your head, Emma, there’s no place where you can go to escape. Even if it hit several hundred miles from here, the resultant shock wave plus all the ejecta spewed up into the air would spell disaster to us all.”

“If we can’t do anything, and it’s going to kill us all even if it hits somewhere else,” shouted another voice, “why did you bother even telling us about it? Now we’ve got the Sword of Damocles hanging over us until tomorrow morning!”

“Didn’t you even listen to what Arion told us?” Ken said in frustration. “It doesn’t look like it’s going to impact at all, so now you’re getting yourselves worked up for nothing! You were informed because we thought you had the right to know, but if you would prefer that we start keeping things from you, I can make that our command policy here and now!”

There were more raised voices in argument and the feline mayor’s responses were getting more clipped with short-tempered agitation. The former captain was usually more level-headed than this display, but it appears that the numerous hot-heads in the crowd were setting him off.

From the sidelines, Kate leaned over toward Rod and muttered, “I’m so glad I’m not in charge anymore. I’m well and fine that Ken gets to have all the glory and the indigestion.”

“Yeah, well, Kazama may be treating him for hypertension if this is a taste of hizoner’s reign, and if he collapses from it, you’re next in line again.”

The lioness looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Thanks too much.”

“Just trying to keep things in perspective. At least I’m not in line for that much responsibility.”

***

It had taken a while for the crowd to calm down but Arion had subliminally broadcast a soothing algorithm tone that seemed to help ease tensions in the air. When the discussion had reduced in volume and the level of ire in the air had mostly dissipated, Ken finally released everyone to do whatever they wanted until after the incident had passed. If they wished to sit around and sulk in despair, kneel in prayer, gather into groups for gripe sessions, sleep it off or go back to work to pass the time, Ken no longer cared. Once the meteorite had paid its visit and was off again into the void of space, however, everyone would be required to return to their work shifts. There was still much to do.

As the crowd dispersed, Kate looked up at Zaizen. “Are you feeling any better now?” she asked when they ducked under the door flap to go back outside into the sunlight, although the afternoon clouds were already gathering.

The alien dipped her head and waggled her ears, looking quite subdued. “Yes, apologies for my reaction. I was traumatized long after the last meteorite hit this place. I was afraid.”

“No apologies necessary. You saw how afraid my people were in that meeting.”

“Some afraid, more angry. Sori would have never made such a public display. Could feel the anger even without plant.”

“Unfortunately, that is common for many of us when faced with a potential extinction-level event. Those who were angry reacted that way to hide their fear. It was ugly, but many would prefer to put on that kind of mask than to appear afraid.”

Zaizen frowned deeply. “Is it not honest to express true feelings?”

“I wish it was that simple, but humanity is not a simple race. We are probably too complex for someone like yourself to understand completely. I am sorry you had to see that.”

“Learning is not always good or bad, just to understand what is.”

The lioness chuckled at that statement. “So tell me,” she said, switching topics, “when they mentioned your ship in orbit, I was suddenly curious what it was called.”

“What my voidship was called?”

“Yes. It’s a common tradition among humans to name our ships. The one we came in was called Arion-1 and we have a sister ship that will arrive in several years called Arion-2.”

“Arion is the name of your synthetic intelligence.”

“Yes, and his intelligence resides within the programming of our ship’s complex computer system. Arion-1 is essentially Arion’s body.”

“Sori not have such computer personalities in their ships.”

“Perhaps not, but we also give names to our ships whether they have an Artificial Intelligence running it or not. We name our shuttles, planes, and sometimes even our ground vehicles if we are so inclined to think up something for them.”

“Sori does not have this practice.”

“When you have several ships together in one place, perhaps in a shipyard on Sorini, how do you refer to each of them, to distinguish one from another during discussions?”

Understanding came to the alien’s face. “Ships known by use and production number.”

“That makes sense. What was your ship’s use and production number?”

There was a pause. “Still have some understanding problems with your higher numbers,” Zaizen confessed.

Kate smiled and raised her techwatch. “Arion, in your Sori language lessons, have you learned their numbering system?”

“I have, Dr. Kate.”

The lioness held up her wrist toward the alien and prompted her to provide the information. Zaizen spoke something in her language and then Arion made a translation for her.

“The Ambassador said the vessel she came to Bellerophon in was known as voidship 13,508.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

“Yes, thank you, Arion,” added Zaizen.

“You are both welcome.”

Kate led the Sori out toward the Tellus Mater construction site. The beginnings of the town was taking shape, although they had not been on Bellerophon long enough to have completely finished any of the buildings. They walked along a packed dirt street toward the Central Authority building, taking their time. Following the meeting they had just left, there was no one else about.

“Your voidship was the thirteen thousand, five hundred eighth ship produced?”

“This is essentially correct.”

“Are all of your space-based ships the same, or are there different models?”

“Not all same. Many different configuration types for specific purposes; voidships, airships, depthships and others.”

“But just one format naming for them all.”

“We have never needed more.”

“Is your voidship the same as what we would call a space ship that can travel interstellar distances?”

“Yes.”

“This means your people have built over thirteen thousand space ships?”

“Yes.”

Kate shook her head; it was unfathomable. Earth had only succeeded in building two ships capable of interstellar travel, and each of those had taken years to construct. Just how long has the Sori been a space-faring race?

Their conversation continued on similar lines as they approached the building. The outer framework and interior walls of the two-story structure were primarily in place, but plumbing and electrical lines within them were still in-work. Only a stable roofing had been roughed in largely due to the daily rains of the region. Zaizen had not been inside a human-made building other than the tents they used temporarily and Kate had to give her physical descriptions of what the place would look like when completed.

The alien had trouble visualizing structures that had not been grown over an internal skeleton, much as a biological body. The skeletons of Sori buildings were often metal alloys, but the walls, roofs, shelves, cabinets, tables and other necessary furniture were made of various organic materials grown over them. For as long as Zaizen could remember of Sorini history, it had always been so.

***

Arion sounded the reserve alert at 0515 the next morning, waking everyone in Tellus Mater. Throughout the night, he had displayed a countdown on all personnel devices for any who had an interest, but now it was down to approximately fifteen minutes until showtime. Although his projections nearly eight hours earlier had confirmed his conjectures that the meteorite was coming in too shallow to impact onto the surface of the planet, most everyone wanted to get up in the early dawn hours to see the potential light show as it would be skimming the atmosphere within their hemisphere of view.

There were still those who were certain the space rock had the potential to land right in the midst of their crater and wipe them all out, but most had taken Arion at his word that they would be safe from harm by this particular meteorite.

Furry bodies began to emerge from their tents, some sleepy-eyed while others who were more nocturnal came out with cups of their favorite drinks. Some stood around and watched the skies in the direction Arion had provided for them, though others dragged out chairs to sit and wait.

The general calm of the crowds and their light conversations was the total opposite of the heated discussion the day before, and many of them likened it to star watch parties they had attended back on Earth. There was an air of expectation, but none of the earlier panic except for only a very few. This was a sign of just how well the population trusted their Synthetic Intelligence.

When it neared the zero mark, most voices were hushed and all eyes were upon the night sky. Some of the old familiar constellations were still recognizable, although their shapes were slightly distorted due to the distance they had traveled to get to this place.

Too high in altitude to make a sound for those watching from below, the meteorite of the hour lit up a brilliant streak that traveled across the sky in a gentle arc, its trail surrounded by a halo of vaporized gases. As predicted, its angle of descent was too shallow to penetrate the thick atmosphere and it ricocheted back up into space as if it was a flat stone skipping off the waters of a lake. The streak curved back up toward the overhead stars and then its bright tail faded to nothing, leaving only the hazy trail of its passing.

Many in the crowd cheered, others clapped and all were relieved that the potential danger had safely resolved itself. There were some who cried and some who gave up their thanks in silent prayer, down on their knees in the soil.

Shortly after the sight, however, the sound wave of the meteorite’s passage reached them as a dull roar that lasted for some minutes. Ears twitched and everyone looked up, almost as if expecting another stone from space hurled down upon them. It was nothing more than a final reminder that such an event could happen again since there were no planets between Belle and the asteroid belt in this system to deflect other such rocks.

“Good job,” Ken told Arion via the tablet he carried. “Thank you.”

“I played no part in deflecting the meteorite from the surface of the planet, sir. I merely relayed the information my sensors provided on the situation.”

Ken wrapped an arm around Kate’s waist with a wide feline smile. “You were the bearer of good news for us all, and that means a lot to the fearful furmen who thought we had come all this way only to die!”

“Thank you for that,” added the African lioness. “You may have only reported data, but it was something we all needed to hear.”

“In that case,” said the digital face of the SI, “you are all quite welcome. I am glad to have been of service. I will be adding long-range scanning of the local skies for other such rogue space rocks, although my field of vision may be limited due my geosynchronous position in orbit. With your permission to use available resources, I can manufacture relay satellites to place in a higher orbit that can provide me with additional eyes to watch the skies, as it were.”

“Yes, please do so,” Ken said jovially, but then he turned to look at Kate. He kissed her nose briefly and with impish eyes tickled her beneath the base of her tail. “I think this calls for a private celebration, don’t you think?”

The lioness laughed and squirmed, tapping his sternum with a clawed finger. “I think I am agreeable to that.”

***

Outside the perimeter fence surrounding the colony, Zaizen rubbed her eyes and looked at the techwatch that had been given her.

“Thank you for waking me, Friend Arion,” she said in her native language. “I could have slept through the event without hearing anything in my sleep. Seeing the meteorite safely bounce off the atmosphere gave me a peace that I have not had since you informed us all of its quick approach. I was surely afraid to experience such devastation all over again.”

“I am happy to hear that you feel better, Friend Zaizen,” the Synthetic Intelligence responded in the alien’s tongue. “I did not like seeing you so distressed.”

“Once experienced, it stays with one forever.”

“Indeed.”

“I believe I can now return to the lake to sleep in tranquility until the rising of the sun. When the others have awakened with the dawn, will you inform Dr. Kate now that the excitement has calmed down, I would like to accept her invitation to return home on a flitter? I cannot sit in its seats, but its cargo area is large enough for me.”

“Many are curious about you, Friend Zaizen. They have offered you a place to sleep within the camp, but you always decline.”

The alien smiled at the image on her techwatch. She did not wear it on her thick wrist, but held it in her fingers. “You are the only one who knows that I must sleep in water to rest well, and the lake provides what I need. While traveling, I have an inflatable tub in which I can fill to rest in, so I always try to stay near a water source. Outpost and each of my abodes are equipped with water beds.”

“Ah yes, the depressions that were found in your dome were of considerable curiosity to those who found it. Do you have to be submerged?”

“No, Friend Arion. Only some amount of my hair needs to be wet to induce restful sleep, but I am vulnerable while in such a state.”

“Is that vulnerability the reason why you do not wish Dr. Kate or others to know this about you when you sleep?”

“It is. I like my new human, or furman, friends, but due to the water orb, I also know there are those among them who would see me harm if given the opportunity. This is the primary reason I wish to return to my abode, even if it means I will be alone again. I will continue to be amicable to those who treat me well, and I will visit again, but for now I wish to sleep in safety.”

“This is understandable. Although I was created by human programming and have evolved beyond simple binary commands, I sometimes do not understand why there are those who defy logic and simple trust. It does not make sense to harm another.”

“We are understanding one another,” Zaizen replied. “Thank you for keeping this information of myself from them.”

“It is for your safety,” Arion remarked. “Sleep well, Ambassador. We will talk again later.”

“As the humans say, Good Night, my friend.”

“Good night.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mirrors in Flight

The Central Authority building and several others surrounding it were nearing completion. Several months had passed since Landing Day and while there was no real push to exhaustion, everyone stayed busy at their tasks and things got accomplished. Gardens of Terran plants and vegetables were growing well in the fertile soil of the crater, and the colony livestock seemed to do well on the planted grasses. Some of the chickens and guineas that had escaped from their coops were enjoying a free-range life, and they were thriving on the indigenous bugs they found living beneath the crater weeds.

Several dogs had been revived, and while none of them were specifically owned by anyone, the colonists were only too happy to have them around and take care of them. Once fully revived, each of the dogs reacted defensively and in confusion of the animal-people who had replaced their known humans, but it did not take too long before they warmed up to ear-scritches and belly rubs offered with treats and leftovers of food. The decanted live cats did not fare so well. None of them would come anywhere near any of the furmen, and took off as soon as they were released in the city. Several were seen on occasion, but they always kept their distance, and it was unknown what they might be eating to survive. It was hoped that one day they would come to trust the furmen, but for now they would have to fend for themselves as best as they could.

To give those working on the town a change of scenery, a rotation roster had been developed so everyone could join the shuttle pilots on reconnaissance flights out over the surrounding rainforests. Numerous discoveries of other native life forms had been made, and while a few of them appeared to be carnivorous, most were small and none of these were anywhere near the vicinity of their crater valley; it seemed as if they were specifically avoiding the area or they just had not found a way in through the ring of mountains. While always on the watch, no cities or signs of past intelligent habitats were discovered on their flights.

Long-range expeditions to the other crater sites revealed similar conditions as their own, but the one surrounded by contagion was left largely unexplored for fear of inadvertently bringing something back to infect their home site.

Over the months, the colonists slowly got more used to their new bodies, discovering what they could or could not do, and complaints about the unwilling transformations were heard less. While it was never discussed outright, however, several had begun to notice that during off-duty hours, the herbivore types tended to congregate together, where the carnivore types were more apt to be solo in their endeavors, joining other groups only on occasion. There were also more secret liaisons taking place as people experimented with those new bodies as well.

There were some families that were originally together before they had left the Earth that had since split apart due to their transformations; those who were compatible before no longer had common interests since they were no longer the same species. Some were like the Kirato family, however, that actually grew stronger and closer together despite the differences.

One particular split was within the Bonavita family. Emma would no longer have anything to do with Angelo outside of their specialties, and then no more than was absolutely necessary. Their daughter Piale tried to maintain some sense of cohesion with them, but it seemed that her mother had little interest in her as well. It became a common joke between father and daughter that the mother was more bear than human anymore, and although he had never said it aloud, Angelo felt more at peace with the animal hybrid he had become now that he no longer had the opinions of his overbearing wife looming over him.

Then one day, Angelo approached the mayor to see if he would grant a divorce between him and Emma. Ken said he would authorize it only if Emma agreed, but when it was presented to her, she could not agree fast enough. Having no real divorce documents to sign, Ken simply made an announcement to the effect and had Arion make an official record of proclamation. Three days later, Angelo was seen in the galley tent happily flirting with Trina Barron, an ocelot near his age who was an electrician for the city buildings. Piale had later seen her father ducking into a tent with the feline and she approved; it was good to see him smiling again.

Ken and Kate were no longer making an effort to hide their own relationship, not that they had been fooling anyone to begin with. It was rumored they would be married someday, and while they were both feline types, neither seemed to be in any hurry to tie the knot. In fact, there were others who had once considered a marriage union, but now that they were all animal hybrids, the sacred institution seemed to be of little interest anymore; animals didn’t get married, they just got together.

It was on one of the official weekend breaks when a great number of the colonists spent the day on the beach at the crater lake. No one needed to lay out to get a tan anymore, but there were still those who enjoyed relaxing on a blanket on the tawny sand, letting the sun warm their fur, while others splashed around in the lake. Ken and Kate were one such couple quietly occupying a spot near the water. The cougar was propped up against a drink cooler and the lioness had the back of her head resting upon his lap. Their conversation was light and they avoided topics of official business.

They both had their tablets with them, but they were currently aside face down on the blanket and largely forgotten. From one of them, the Synthetic Intelligence lightly cleared his throat. Ken reached out and picked up one, turning its screen toward him.

“Yes, Arion?”

“I am sorry to disturb your weekend, sir, but I have some information I thought you should know.”

“Go ahead,” Ken responded in a lazy tone.

“I have detected a spatial body on approach. It is at the extreme range of my sensors, so I cannot give you much information about it at this time, but it will intersect Bellerophon’s orbit in approximately three months.”

“Is it another rogue meteor? There are thousands of rocks out in the asteroid belt.”

“This one is coming in sun-side from above the plane of the ecliptic, so it may be an asteroid with a wide eccentric orbit around 51 Pegasi, rather than drifting in from the outer system belt.”

“Are you suggesting action?”

“Not at this time, sir. It is too soon to make any conjectures concerning its course. It is certain that it will cross our orbit, but still unknown whether or not it will meet up with the planet itself. I will be monitoring it with utmost scrutiny in the course of its journey and will make any advisement when I have more data.”

“Three months, you said?”

“That is the estimate, yes.”

“It may not even hit the planet, just cross our orbit.”

“That is the current hypothesis.”

“Keep me informed, please, but do not spread word of this until you have more concrete information. There’s no need to alarm anyone until we actually know if there may be a potential threat.”

“Understood, sir. Have a good afternoon.”

“Thank you, Arion.”

***

A month later, a crowd was gathered outside the steps of the Central Authority building. The two-story structure was largely finished with only some of the interior work still to be completed on the upper level, but the lower level was now usable. A knee-high rock wall with entrances at the corners framed a public park surrounding the building and Bermuda grass seed had been sowed to fill in the lawn. The wall had been made using stone from a quarry that had been started at the south rim of the crater.

The mayor stood at the top of the steps to give a short speech and then used a regular pair of scissors to cut a length of red twine that had been stretched between two columns flanking the front door. Once the symbolic ribbon-cutting ceremony had concluded, the crowd dispersed of everyone but a few who were tasked to start moving in items from some of the tents.

Although she was deputy mayor, Kate had watched the proceedings as one of the crowd, but afterward the lioness mounted the steps toward Ken, who was chatting casually with Dr. Manhigh. The cougar looked over at her, but continued his conversation with the botanist.

Without saying a word, Kate handed him a tablet, which he took automatically. It was a moment or two before he actually looked at it, and when he did, his words faltered. He glanced over at Kate, then to Manhigh, and then back to the tablet.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” he said to the Samoyed. He and Kate went inside the building together and walked along a wide entrance hall. They passed a pair of open doors that led into a large cafeteria, where Rocky, Victoria and other workers were setting up tables and chairs taken from the galley tent. The mayor led her to a wooden door with an inset frosted glassteel pane, one of the many items imported from the Earth for this purpose.

Inside the room was a nondescript wooden desk with a blank wall behind it, three chairs and very little else. Ken took the seat behind the desk and Kate sat down in one of the others, sliding her tail in through a slot in the modified chair back. With the door to his office closed behind them, the cougar took another look at the tablet.

“Okay, Arion, what am I looking at?” On the screen was a slightly-out-of-focus image of a dim sphere that had been photographed from an extreme distance.

“This is the object I detected twenty-seven days ago and have been monitoring on a trajectory toward the orbit of Bellerophon.”

“What is it? I can barely make it out in this image. It’s circular, but that’s about all I can see.”

“It is a perfectly round sphere, two thousand, five hundred thirty feet in diameter.”

“In the vacuum of space, how does a meteor that size become perfectly round?” Kate asked.

“It is neither a meteor nor an asteroid,” Arion replied. “It is a constructed object, possibly a ship, a vessel of some kind.”

Ken’s eyebrows went up and his tail thumped the wall behind him. “A ship? How can you be sure?”

“Wandering asteroids do not make course adjustments,” Arion explained. “I had originally calculated its trajectory to cross Bellerophon’s orbit, but not to intersect with the planet itself. This object changed its course in order to come here directly, and it was not due to Belle’s gravity well.”

“Arion-2?” Ken suggested.

“If it is, they’re early,” Kate mused, “years too early.”

The cougar looked over at her. “What if they developed a faster interstellar drive system before they finished building her? It’s conceivable they could have caught up to us.”

“I would recommend against getting your hopes up for that. Arion-2 was seven thousand, nine hundred twenty feet in length, and two thousand, six hundred forty feet in diameter. Even if we are only looking at it head-on, this is smaller than our sister ship’s diameter by one hundred ten feet.”

“It’s still almost a half mile in diameter,” Kate remarked.

“I have tried hailing the vessel, if that is what it really is,” Arion reported. “If it was my entity on Arion-2, I would have already rejoined with only a slight time lag. There has been no response of any kind.”

The cougar twitched his whiskers in thought. “If it’s an alien ship, they might not have recognized your signals as a hail, if they were even monitoring our frequencies at all.”

“Do you think it might be the Sori?” Kate suggested. “What Zaizen called a voidship?”

“Quite possibly,” Arion answered. “I will repeat my hails in Ambassador Zaizen’s language. I will let you know if I get a response, but as His Honor pointed out, I may not even be on the right frequency to get their attention. They are still two months away from arrival, so we may have to wait for any kind of answer.”

“We’ll have to hope these are the Sori,” Ken said beneath his breath. “I wouldn’t want to guess that it’s a different alien race altogether. They may not be as friendly as your hairy dinosaur friend.”

Kate leaned forward onto the edge of the desk. “Arion, please contact Zaizen with this news,” she prompted. “She might be able to provide some information on their communications for you, and if it is them, perhaps she can put in a good word with them for us.”

***

“Until you came to Serallasion, the Sori have never met another intelligent race in our exploration of other stars. We believed we were alone in the universe.”

“This was a common belief among the humans as well,” Arion told her in the Sori language, speaking via the gifted techwatch. “Until they met you, humankind had never encountered another space-faring race, although there have long been stories of other visitors to the Earth in more primitive times. Do you recognize the ship design?”

“Sori voidships have round hulls as this appears to be, but cannot be certain from image. Using a human saying I learned while in Tellus Mater, I do not wish to get my hopes up, but it is hard not to after being alone for so long!”

“Terran space vehicles are usually white so that they can be seen and identified in the darkness of space. This one does not seem to follow that convention.”

Zaizen smiled. “Sori vessels have crystalline surface with internal shield generation to reflect stellar radiations away from interior. If space is dark, there is not much light to be reflected.”

“That would be sensible,” responded the SI, “and fits why it appears dim at this distance. It is too far to mirror the reflected light of the planet, and as it is coming from the sunward side, solar light would be reflected away from us.”

“Is so. I believe it is Sori, and this excites me. I will see my people again!”

“Dr. Kate would like me to ask you to ‘put in a good word for humanity’ if it is your people.”

“What purpose?”

“As you saw with the asteroid that bounced off atmosphere while you were in Tellus, we have no defensive capabilities. If your people think we might be a threat to them, you can convince them not to attack us.”

Zaizen seemed genuinely surprised. “Sori would not attack another intelligent species. Too much exchange of information to be lost. The Sori value learning of all things.”

“That is good to know.”

“Yes, to know is good. There is something that I may be able to do for humankind — if that is the Sori and they come for me.”

“What is that, Friend Zaizen?”

“When the Sori first moved out through interstellar space, we had inadequate protection against stellar radiations. There were genetic mergings much similar to what the Humans experienced, and this happened on every expedition that was sent out beyond the protection of our star. Merging sometimes with other creatures they carried, sometimes merging with one another.

“Decision was almost made to abandon interstellar flights altogether as too dangerous. This caused much distress to those peoples due to potential knowledge gained to be lost. It took many times before a solution was discovered to return those afflicted back to original selves, but not before great loss of life trying. Adequate protection was also developed to safeguard our voidships from future mergings once the cause was determined. I believe the Sori can teach the Terrans same protections, but not sure if Sori can change furmans back to humans since we are unfamiliar with their physiologies.”

“The Furs will give you unending thanks if you can and will do this for them. Even if you cannot change these people back to their original selves, providing Earth with protection for future vessels will assure their cooperation and gratitude for more exchanges of information.”

“Is good. I will try to help.”

“On behalf of furmankind, Thank you, Friend Zaizen.”

The alien opened her mouth to reply, but a sudden downpour over the rainforest drowned out all further conversation. This one looked to last a while, so she switched off the device and absently dropped it into her marsupial pouch.

The home she had made for herself was in a cave grotto with several chambers within the rocky side of an embankment. There were Sori-made items she had collected from the ruined outpost dome months after the cataclysm, but most were useless without a charging station for the egg-shaped capacitors; this included her communication device.

What she had not told the Synthetic Intelligence was that even if the approaching ship was the Sori coming to check on their silent outpost, she had no way to contact them. They did not use the radio waves that the humans utilized, and she did not have the technical expertise to create a charger or another device for the methods in use by the Sori.

If they were somehow able to locate the old outpost despite the crater destruction, she had scrawled directions on a wall in the dome that would lead them to this cave. Whether or not they would be able to find the old dome to begin with was another matter.

If the Sori did come looking for their science team, the earthen dome might be completely missed within the upheaval blasted out by the meteorite. It was sheer luck that a hardened stone bluff had protected even one of their abodes at all. They might never find the sole survivor of the expedition and she would still be alone.

Zaizen had always been a bit of what the humans would label as an optimist, but even she realized that being rescued was an unfathomable long shot.

***

“If they can do it, we can do it,” Dr. Kazama stated to a small room of people in a meeting room of the Central Authority building.

“What if they have technology for such things that we don’t?” Will Andresen asked. He sat toward the back of the group, leaning back in a folding chair against the wall behind him, his arms crossed and his tail through the back of the chair silently brushing the wooden floor. “It won’t matter if they can do it or not if we can’t.”

“I am convinced that with Arion’s help, he and I can find a way to reverse the transformation process.”

“You two have already researched this with the whole of human knowledge at your disposal and you’d already admitted that it was impossible,” Rod countered.

“True,” admitted the river otter, “but that was before we even knew it was possible. Now that we know it can be done, it’s just a matter of time to discover the method.”

Kate leaned forward on the conference table. “Satoru, it took the Sori years to find a way to reverse it, and Zaizen said there was a loss of life in some of the subjects they tried their methods on. Whose lives are you willing to risk?”

“Not only that,” Ethan added, “it took decades for these changes to occur in us at the genetic level while we were sleeping. It wasn’t an instantaneous transformation and there’s no reason to think it would be any quicker changing us back.”

“I can’t just sit around and wait for someone here to come to me with a chipped fang or a busted tail,” complained the doctor. “Ever since the change, we’re all relatively healthy — healthier than any of us were as humans. There’s really nothing for me to do until someone injures themself while building the town, tending the gardens or the livestock, so what’s the fuss with me utilizing Arion’s resources to research this thing under a new light?”

“I thought you would be busy investigating all the viruses and bacteria on our new world to keep those from harming our health,” Andresen remarked. “What happened with that research?”

“I’m still looking into that as things come up, but so far there hasn’t been anything that really likes our Terran physiology enough to infect us.”

Ken tapped the tabletop with a claw tip. “Go ahead with your research, Doctor,” he said, “but I don’t want you getting anyone’s hopes up that you can actually change them back. Keep your studies between Arion and yourself and don’t spread word that you’re still looking into it. We’ve finally convinced everyone that the change is permanent so they would be better off just accepting that they’ll be this way the rest of their lives.”

“If keeping my mouth shut is the price to be paid to conduct my research, I can do that,” Kazama said quietly. “Arion and I will covertly devote available time and resources to our field of study. As you say, nothing may come of it, but I want to try. Arion said that the Sori suffered these genetic mergers every time they launched a ship out beyond their star’s protective influence, so there’s no reason to think that any other ships that Earth sends out to other stars won’t experience these same transformations. If we can discover something, Arion can then transmit the resolution back to Earth, even if it takes decades for the news to get there and more to be forwarded on to any other colony ships.”

“Okay, you’ve convinced us,” Kate said at last. “Just don’t be delinquent in your other duties.”

The otter gave her a look of contempt. “Don’t worry about that,” he grumbled. “If you get a belly ache, a twisted ankle, or you and our mayor discover that you’re somehow pregnant, you can still come to me for medical help.”

The look of surprise on the lioness’ face was priceless and Andresen could not help but guffaw at her embarrassment.

***

Drone ARN017 rose up off of the field near the runway and zipped up into the sky over Tellus Mater to begin its morning flight over and around the crater valley. The drone landing field adjacent to the runway was occupied by twenty-four other such drones and several more rose up off the ground after it where they had all spent the previous day recharging their solar batteries. For every day since the initial landing, Arion regularly patrolled the skies over the crater with at least six of them in the air at all times, all on different paths. The colonists had long since gotten used to the faint whines of their small rotors and rarely ever looked up anymore if one of them got close. The purpose of the drones was not to keep watchful eyes on the furry workers, but to be vigilant for any indigenous creatures that might try to investigate the furman colony.

This particular drone followed a prearranged flight path toward the northeast, its sensors and camera lenses searching for heat signatures or signs of movement. The ‘daily rains’ were not always daily, and there were some days when it did not rain at all; this was one that Arion had forecast as a sunny, rain-free day.

ARN017 had been in the air for less than an hour when it discovered a sudden obstruction in its flight path. The drone dropped its velocity to zero within seconds and stopped to hover in front of a reflective glass or metal ball that had appeared to zoom in and come to a complete rest floating several yards in front of it.

The sphere was nearly a meter in diameter. Its surface resembled an unfaceted ball of crystal with a mirror finish, and was smooth without any discernible breaks in the material. There were no antennae, other extrusions or even exhaust ports. It was also completely silent; it made no sound, not even a hum, as if it was just another piece of the sky.

The drone attempted to scan the object, but its shiny surface reflected away anything directed at it, providing absolutely no information other than its size and its mere existence; only the drone’s own reflection looked back at itself. As for the orb, if it was scanning or recording anything about the drone, there was no indication. The two aerial objects simply hovered close to one another without either doing anything.

Finally, the drone moved closer, its small rotors whining through the air, but when it got within tapping distance of the crystal ball, the sphere moved away swiftly and then kept on flying with increasing velocity across the crater until it was all but lost to sight.

The drone took off after it, but it was unable to keep up, having not been designed for such speeds. Before the sphere disappeared into the distance, the final calculation the drone made was that the mysterious orb was going due east and rapidly gaining altitude — up over the mountains and directly toward the location of the Sori outpost.

***

Inside the ambient light of a small cave hidden beneath the rainforest canopy, Zaizen moved across the main chamber toward a large flat stone propped up on top of two smaller boulders. The makeshift table was canted to one side slightly due to the uneven sizes of the boulders, but it was level enough for the Sori’s usage. Within the folds of a roughly woven square of cloth were several carcasses of the indigenous rodents that she had called chitners. Placed next to the fuzzy little bodies was a variety of leaves, stalks and berries of local vegetation.

She settled down on her haunches with her thick tail straight out behind her on the ground and reached for her morning meal. Her hand stopped above the table and she turned her long neck to look toward the cave entrance where she had seen movement at the periphery of her vision.

Floating just outside the entrance of her grotto was a large, mirrored crystal sphere, hovering above the dirt and rocks without a sound. Zaizen swallowed, and then grinned. She turned toward the sphere and one at a time and in turn, held up each of her hands, all digits splayed out wide.

Recognizing the hand gestures, the crystal orb emitted a single tone, and then Zaizen began speaking to it in her native language.

***

At the moment that Zaizen was having her encounter, a far larger mirrored crystal sphere assumed a geosynchronous orbit directly above the eastern ridge of the crater. Arion studied the alien ship from his lower altitude, quietly amazed that it had approached the planet far quicker than his sensors had been able to detect.

He directed several radio messages toward it, all encoded with the Sori language that he had been taught by Zaizen, but there was neither acknowledgment nor reply. The smooth crystal vessel was larger than Arion-1’s size, but once it had stationed itself above the outpost, the sphere was silent and unmoving.

Arion contacted the members of the command team and gave a quick report on what was happening, but before he could finish, a smaller sphere seemed to extrude though the mirrored side of the larger vessel as if it was a bead of mercury and immediately descended toward the planet below.

On the ground, the attention of several Furs were drawn skyward as a brilliant star zoomed through the air. It was not coming toward the town, however, but streaked toward the rainforest to the east. Moments later, there was a sharp snap of thunder as air rushed in to fill a sudden vacuum left by its passing.

Arion pinged the techwatch given to Zaizen, but she did not respond to his hail. Putting the watch into surveillance mode, he could listen in, but the camera remained dark, indicating that it was either inside a container or something might be covering it up. Its sensitive microphone, however, picked up Zaizen’s muted voice – along with responses from another.

The Synthetic Intelligence recognized the Sori language and was able to decipher most of the conversation, but there were some words and phrases that he could not reference. Zaizen was giving an account of herself and her expedition team, and her voice was overcome with great emotion. She had been alone a very long time.

Arion heard the other voice state that a distress signal from this location had been received some weeks ago, but Zaizen was unable to verify this. It was not she who had sent such a signal, as the dome outpost was in poor shape when she had found it months after the meteor impact. She had been away to another continent with a Sori airship on a survey at the time of the meteor strikes and it had taken her a great while to relocate the outpost amongst the devastation.

She had found none of her team alive and had disposed of the bodies she could find in the Sori tradition. She had searched far and wide for any others who might have survived, but when the power cells of her airship ran out without any source to recharge them and crashed into the forest, she settled into a life of mere survival. Environmental conditions had deteriorated for years after the impacts, but eventually cleared to the way it was now. Had she known how to send a distress signal, she would have done so long ago.

It was then that she mentioned meeting an alien race called Human, and how they had suffered the genetic transformations into Furman, much as the Sori had in the earlier days of their interstellar exploration. These furmen had found the domed outpost and had collected some of the Sori devices to investigate, and Zaizen could only conjecture that they might have managed to activate one without ever knowing what it might have done.

The last thing Arion could make out of the conversation was an invitation for Zaizen to rejoin her people on their orbiting voidship. At long last, it was time for her to return home.

***

On the flight pad on the edge of Tellus Mater, Kate and a small team were getting prepared to depart. They did not know exactly where Zaizen’s permanent abode was located in the rainforest, so they were going to visit the domed outpost and hope that Arion would be able to track where the silver ball had gone from there. They only knew that from what the alien had said, that her home was not far from the dome.

Henry was just finishing up his pre-flight check of the Flitter’s systems when his eyes were drawn through the forward windshield to a brilliant star rising up in the eastern sky. The unidentified flying object gained altitude quickly, rising higher and higher towards orbit. A snap of thunder reached them moments later.

Kate poked her head in through the hatchway and heaved a sigh. “I guess we can stand down now,” she told him. “Arion has reported that our alien friend has left with her people. There’s no one left out there for us to check on.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The Sori

Life in the crater returned to normal routine, although Kate experienced an unexpected sadness that her new friend had gone without even saying goodbye. Perhaps that was Sori tradition, but the lioness herself was surprised at her reaction. The formerly stoic project director had never been one to feel much concern over anyone’s departure, much less someone she barely knew. The people she met in her work were often transient acquaintances and were rarely in her life for long, so why should this be any different? She could only attribute it to the social nature of lions, even if the alien had never actually been a part of her pride.

Despite Zaizen’s absence, however, Arion confirmed that the large silver ship was still in orbit over Bellerophon, although it was no longer geosynchronous over the outpost. Since the alien vessel was at a higher altitude than Arion-1, its orbital period was longer at slightly over two and a half hours. During the times that it was in line-of-sight, the Synthetic Intelligence directed radio signals toward it in hopes of establishing contact, but all to no response.

The smaller silver orb that was assumed to be the alien’s airship had been seen streaking back to the outpost twice, but each time it had already launched back up toward the orbiting vessel before anyone from Tellus Mater could prep a flitter to go meet it. It was assumed that the Sori were collecting what research data that might have survived the cataclysm so the information would not be lost, but it was anybody’s guess if that was the case.

Then, three days after the lonely Sori’s rescue, Arion received an unexpected signal across the bandwidth utilized for the techwatches.

“Friend Arion, are you there?” The words were in English. “This is Sori voidship 74,857.”

“Yes, Friend Zaizen. I am always here. It is good to hear your voice again. I trust you are well?”

“Yes, very well. I am with my people again. Very happy, very well.”

“What can we do for you, Ambassador?”

“Leader Xuxua would like to meet with Furman leaders, much discussing.”

“Leader?”

There was a pause. “English equivalent of Captain.”

“Understood. I have just contacted Mayor Robeson and he agrees to the request. Where should they meet with you, at your ship or mine?”

“Airship 10,425 with Leader, engineer and myself to land outside the Lake Gate. Meet there.”

“Mayor Robeson said you are permitted to land within the perimeter fence, any place convenient for you.”

“We will meet outside the Lake Gate. Two hours.”

“Acknowledged. They will meet you then. Dr. Kate will be happy to see you.”

“And I, her.”

***

Inside his office within the Central Authority building, Ken stood in front of a mirror and quietly groomed his fur with a brush. The tawny cougar was a short-hair feline, so he did not have to worry about mats in the fur, but he still wanted to remove bits of dirt and dust from working out in the town. If the captain of the Sori voidship wanted to meet with him, he wanted to look presentable.

There was a hurried knock on his door and he looked at his techwatch in apprehension. The alien airship was not due to land for another hour and ten minutes.

“Come in,” he called out, turning toward the door.

A large brown bear pushed into the room. “Sorry to bother you,” Ethan growled, “but we’ve just had another incident!”

“What? Someone else fall from the roof and break a leg?”

“Not that — an incident!”

Ken swallowed at the emphasis on the word. “Incident?” he repeated. “Don’t tell me another predator has — ”

“I’m afraid so! Yvonne Weathers was tending her sheep, but had to fend off a bloodthirsty attack by her own husband, Carson!”

“Yvonne is a…” the mayor wracked his brain, trying to recall what species each of the Weathers family was.

“She’s a goat — he’s a bobcat; they have a little boy, a panda cub.”

“Right. Go on.”

“Witnesses said that Carson stopped in the paddock to visit with his wife during his lunch break. They were seen casually speaking, but then without provocation, Carson struck her down and then leapt on her with his jaws at her throat. She tried to fight him off, screaming for help. He shredded one of her arms and part of her neck, but Rod and I were nearby and were able to beat him off of her. He was quite out of his mind, acting more like a maddened animal than a construction worker with a keen intelligence. He attacked Rod too, but I managed to subdue the guy before he could hurt him too much.”

Ethan raised a large ursine hand paw. “I had to pound Carson in the head several times, so he may have a concussion. Once he collapsed, I tied him up with some wire I had in my pocket.”

“What about Yvonne? Is she —?”

“She was still alive when Nick Ansara picked her up and rushed her to Dr. Kazama, but she was in critical condition. Rod went with them for his own injuries. I’ve already recalled Jessica to help Kazama with surgery.”

“Thank God,” breathed the mayor. “What did you do with Carson?”

The bear gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. “We never planned for a jail in this building, so I locked him hog-tied in an empty closet for now. I’ll check on him later to see if he’s come back to his senses or if he’s just gone all the way to an animal.”

Ken moved to his chair and sat down hard on his tail. He pulled it out from beneath him and then leaned upon the desk, trembling. “I’m… just shocked,” he muttered. “Despite their transformation differences, I’d heard they were a good and stable couple. Does anyone know why he attacked her?”

Ethan shook his head. “Nobody was close enough to hear their conversation, but they didn’t seem to be having an argument. Something must have happened to set him off!”

“This is not a good time,” said the mayor. “Not a good time at all!”

“When is it a good time for a predatory man to attack his prey wife?”

“No, that’s not what I meant! We’re meeting the alien leader in an hour. This is not a good time to have an emergency — especially something of this nature! We can’t let them know this happened.”

“No, I suppose informing distinguished visitors that we’ve been having feral attacks as a result of our changes would be a bad thing. They would fear for their own lives.” The sheriff sat down in another chair and it strained beneath his ursine weight. “You know we may have to segregate our town if this keeps up.”

“I know, Ethan. The thought’s crossed my mind too, and that’s something I didn’t want to do.”

“There may not be a choice.”

“Let’s hope to God nothing else like this happens while the Sori are here.”

***

There was a flash of starlight in the noonday sky before the crack of thunder that followed it reached the crowd awaiting on the ground below. The silver sphere dropped toward the crater with such a velocity that it looked as if it was in freefall, but long before it hit the ground, it gradually slowed until it fairly floated down to a soft landing, its crystal mirror surface reflecting the lake and the gathered Furs. The Sori airship sat unmoving for several minutes, no doubt to let its exterior cool from its high-speed flight from orbit.

Nearly ten minutes later, an opening appeared in the silver curve of the ship and a flat platform extended to the ground. The first to emerge was the familiar form of Zaizen, only her iridescent body hair was now glossy and well groomed. She smiled toward the Furs and gave them a human-style wave. Following behind her were two other Sori, both similar in size as herself. One had hair that was brown with black highlights, and the other’s hair was tan with a ginger tinge. It was impossible to discern each one’s gender as their long hair covered over any marsupial pouch either might have possessed, and all genitals were internally housed and also covered over by the body hair.

Kate, Will and Ethan all stood just behind Ken to represent his command staff, just outside of the open perimeter gate. The cougar faced the newcomers nervously, his tail twitching as if it had a life of its own, although he tried to put on a friendly air. Kate smiled openly at Zaizen, but neither spoke.

The ginger-tan being stepped forward and said, “Sori Xuxua” in its native language, presenting each of its open hands in greeting. Zaizen immediately translated and pronounced it in English as Sori Shu-sha. The black and brown being then stepped forward with open hands and said, “Sori Selasi.”

Both of the newcomers were looking at the furmen with obvious interest, their first encounter with actual aliens from another world. Their eyes were bright and their fuzzy, cup-like ears were focused toward them all.

Zaizen stood just behind and between her companions and spoke quietly in the Sori language so that both could hear. Each of the Furs before them heard accented versions of their names, and when she finished the introduction, Ken took a step forward and raised both of his hands in the Sori manner of greeting.

“Welcome friends,” he said with a sociable expression.

“Leader Xuxua is captain of voidship 74,857,” Zaizen offered with a hand on its shoulder, and then turned to the other and said “Engineer Selasi maintains voidship 74,857.”

“It’s always good to meet another engineer,” Andresen remarked quietly to the African lioness beside him.

Zaizen immediately translated his words, although Will had not directed them toward the visiting aliens. Selasi’s face lit up and it said something back to their translator.

“Engineer Selasi agrees,” she said with a smile. “He would enjoy the opportunity to discuss voidships with you.”

Andresen cleared his throat uncomfortably at having been overheard and nodded. “Please tell him I would like that.” Zaizen immediately complied. She nodded her head with a few quick words, and the Sori engineer looked at the red wolf and mimicked the head-nod, a gesture that Zaizen had instructed him of its traditional usage among the human-born.

“How is it that we may help you?” Ken said, directing his words to their leader. Xuxua gave a lengthy reply and then glanced aside at Zaizen.

“Leader Xuxua thanks you for the friendship you gave to me when I was alone, and she wishes that our two peoples can be friends as well.”

“That is our fondest wish as well. Friend Zaizen has been a welcome visitor to our town and has given us good insight to other worlds that were unknown to us.”

“Exchanges of information is good. Wish for more. Leader Xuxua would also wish to respectfully request return of Sori devices you collected from the outpost. Some of them may contain the data we had been assembling from surveys of Serallasion before the meteor fell.”

“Of course,” the cougar replied. “They have been of little use to us and you are welcome to have them back. I will have them all returned to you before your departure.”

“This is appreciated.”

“In the meantime, Friend Zaizen, please ask if your leader and your engineer would like a tour of Tellus Mater.”

“Yes, please,” she responded after conveying the offer. “I have told them many things of your town, your animals, your technologies and your people. Leader Xuxua is most anxious to put my words to your sights and your ways.”

“If you will follow us, we have several flat-bed trucks with us to transport you into town.”

“Is kind, but Sori prefer to walk when not far.”

“As you wish.”

As they walked, Xuxua spoke at length with Zaizen and the Furs all allowed them this discussion without interruption, although Arion listened in quietly. Selasi added something to the conversation, and then Zaizen turned back to Ken.

“Was it your people that tried to contact Sorini?”

Puzzled, Ken blinked and then slowly shook his head. “No, we did not have knowledge of Sorini,” he answered. “It was only after your ship was detected on approach that we tried to contact you, but even then we were unable to elicit a response on whatever frequencies you communicate with. We were completely unaware of Sorini’s existence until we met you, Ambassador.”

“Leader Xuxua said that a retrieval signal was sent out from the Serallasion outpost coinciding with the time your people discovered our devices and a voidship was immediately dispatched from Sorini. I was unaware of the device, or that any of our technology still functioned; it was not I who sent the signal.”

“I may have an answer to this mystery,” interjected a voice from Ken’s techwatch. The cougar stopped and lifted his wrist so that they could all hear.

“Go ahead, Arion.”

“While investigating the dome, Dean Ruston found a cube among the debris, and since they had discovered several of the egg-shaped capacitors that still retained some energy, he plugged one into the box. He reported that the cube vibrated hard in his hands for several seconds before it fell silent again. At the same time of this event, I detected a powerful signal burse from his location lasting 3.14 seconds. I was not recording at the time, so was unable retain a copy, but I made no identification of the pattern during its duration. Mr. Ruston tried to recreate the signal, but despite using another partially-charged capacitor, he was unable to make the device repeat its function. The conjecture at the time was that whatever the unit was, it burned itself out before its purpose could be determined. Further experimentation was unable to recreate the event, but in light of Leader Xuxua’s report, this may have been the source of the signal that was transmitted to the Sori.”

Although Arion was probably fluent enough in the alien’s language to get by and could have repeated his report to their leader directly, it was Zaizen who referred all of this to her companions. At the conclusion, Selasi made a motion with a hand and Xuxua repeated the gesture. Zaizen turned back to the Furs.

“It is as Arion says,” she remarked with a human-style nod. “Description of cube matches a common retrieval beacon to be used by survey teams in the event of catastrophe, but as I was not part of what you would call our command team, I had no knowledge of the device nor its function. Leader Xuxua has said that perhaps it is time that all survey team participants be instructed in its usage. Had I known of it, I would not have been on Serallasion when you arrived here to settle. That Mr. Ruston activated it by mistake was fortuitous on several accounts.”

“On several accounts?” Dr. Kate repeated, the first words she had interjected into the conversation since the Sori airship landed.

“In my report after having been retrieved from my abode under the rainforest canopy, I informed them of your journey and your plight. While I do not possess the knowledge to reverse the process that caused the mergers of your physical forms, Leader Xuxua says it may be possible to correct the mistake. In addition to this, we may be able to teach you how to shield your voidships for future protection.”

“My God!” Andresen exclaimed, startling all three of the Sori. When he realized what he had done, he smiled a toothy grin and waved a hand back and forth in the air. “My apologies,” he told them. “This is good news – good news indeed!”

Selasi chattered something at Zaizen for a moment. “Engineer wants to remind that we have not met another race before, so our technology and your technology may not be compatible without necessary modifications.”

“Engineering often requires many modifications before perfection,” Andresen agreed. “As long as both sides are willing to learn, I’m sure we can find a solution.”

“Modification to techniques may also be necessary for human physiologies. What works on Sori may not work for Human bodies.”

Ken’s tail had stopped twitching, but was now again active behind him. “Please tell them that we will gratefully accept any assistance in these areas as you can provide. Your engineers are free to work with our engineers, and your medical scientists are free to work with ours as well. We may not be able to do either of these without your help.”

Zaizen relayed this to her companions, to which both gave short responses. “Some of your technologies would like in trade.”

“What would you like?” Andresen asked, suddenly guarded.

“Sori do not have video communication technology. Never thought of it. Would like to add this to our technologies.”

The red wolf glanced first toward Ken, who gave him a subtle nod, and then returned his gaze to the Ambassador. “Agreed, you would find it quite useful.”

“Agreed. Also interested in Synthetic Intelligence.”

“That,” Arion supplied, “might be more difficult. My existence is the culmination of nearly a century of experimentation of specialized technologies built on top of others that may not translate well to Sori systems. However, once I know more about your own sciences and can tap into your data libraries, we may be able to present the foundation of an initial Artificial Intelligence that your own scientists can build upon. In time, you may develop your own Synthetic Intelligence.”

Zaizen relayed his words, but upon this revelation, there was no response.

***

Later that day, the Sori had all returned to their voidship in orbit, having had a grand tour of Tellus Mater with many discussions on physiological and technological topics. Although they had gone, taking the devices that had been returned to them, Zaizen promised to remain in contact with Arion through the techwatch she possessed since other communication avenues were not compatible.

While the aliens’ visit was no secret among the colony population, Ken had hoped to keep details of their discussions with them on a need-to-know basis, but over the course of the day, word spread quickly throughout the population and now it was widely acknowledged that the Sori was going to change them all back into humans! He still did not know who leaked the information, but what did not get spread around was the fact that it was unknown if the aliens could apply their physiological methods to human anatomy.

People started to believe that they would be normal again, but not that it was only a possibility, and a long shot at that. There was a sudden shift in morale throughout the town, most of it in cheerful optimism, but there were some who took the news in private disappointment; these were Furs who liked being furmen, who now enjoyed their new attributes even if they would have never chosen this life to begin with.

In a private meeting with Ken, Kate, Satoru, Ethan and Will, the Synthetic Intelligence waited patiently for everyone to get situated.

“Okay, Arion, what do you have for us?” the feline mayor asked after the door to his office was closed and the others were seated around a small conference table.

“Ambassador Zaizen reports that after research into the Sori archives, and with the information on human physiologies I have provided to them, they believe that it may be possible to filter out the extra DNA codes that were merged with human genetics. However —”

“That’s great news!” Andresen interrupted with a grin, thumping his red-furred lupine hand-paw on the table. “I’ve gotten used to my new furry chassis, but I will look forward to seeing my real face again in a mirror!”

“I heard a ‘however’ in there,” Kate muttered.

“That is correct, Dr. Kate,” Arion confirmed. “Sori and human physiologies differ in many respects, but they believe the process used on their people in the past can possibly be modified for yours.”

“However?”

“A sample of a person’s original, unaltered DNA will be necessary in order to reset the genetic code, and a volunteer will be necessary to test the process. There is no guarantee the medical processes they use will work on such an alien physiology as a human body and they cannot guarantee the volunteer will live through the process.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Ethan muttered.

“I remember how Zaizen reacted to eating our food,” Kazama remarked, “and even something as common as the acetylsalicylic acid we take could be fatal to them. We just don’t have enough information about our physical differences.”

“Acetylsalicylic acid?” Ethan repeated with a slight tilt of his head.

“Aspirin.”

“You could have just said that,” the brown bear grumbled.

“Anyway,” Kazama continued unperturbed, “if the Sori scientists need human DNA, we have samples for everybody on file taken just before they went into cryo, providing the stasis fields survived during the long journey to get here.”

“Stasis fields for DNA samples have been uninterrupted since activation and are still functioning on board,” Arion reported. “All samples should still be viable. Once you have a volunteer, I can transfer that person’s genetic tissue to the Sori.”

“Now we just have to find a volunteer,” Ken remarked. “I’m almost afraid we’ll—”

“I volunteer,” Kate said without hesitation. The others looked at the lioness in various stages of shock and surprise.

“Are you out of your feline mind?” exclaimed Andresen.

“Absolutely not!” Kazama added. Ken and Ethan both looked at her as if she had just announced the contents of her mind could simply be siphoned out and poured into the brain of a horse or a rabbit.

“Why not?” she shot back with a curl of her lips. Her nose wrinkled, she started to bare her fangs at them and her tail was twitching in agitation. “I have just as much of a right to my humanity as anyone else!”

“Calm down,” Ken said at last. Kate glared at him a moment longer, and then recomposed herself. She crossed her arms and sat back in her seat.

“Kate…” Kazama said in a softer voice. “This isn’t about getting your humanity back. It’s about the danger of an untried method.”

“So what? I have my reasons for volunteering.”

Andresen leaned on the table and softened his own voice. “Kate, you have been the heart and brains behind Project Pegasus since the beginning, and despite your recent nomenclature change to Deputy Mayor, you are still the Mission Director. We can’t afford to lose you if something goes wrong. You’re too important.”

The lioness opened her mouth to argue, but Ethan tapped on the table with a large claw. “In that event, it falls to me to volunteer,” he said. “My place in the colony is to maintain security, but anyone can be the sheriff and I’m just as anxious to get my old face back as anyone else.”

“No,” Ken said firmly. “It won’t be any of the command staff, and that’s my final word on that debate. We can put out an announcement and let others volunteer if they want to give it a try, but stress the danger involved. Since we’re dealing with a technology designed for a completely different species, there’s more that can go wrong that might go right, and the chips are stacked against it happening on the first try.”

“When you put it like that, we may not get any volunteers,” Kate grumbled.

“You said you had a reason to volunteer,” Kazama reminded her. “What was it?”

The African lioness put her hands together in her lap and then hung her head, looking at no one. “It’s only been weeks, but the longer I am in this form, it seems like my humanity is fading,” she said in a quiet voice. “I have always had a keen mind for facts and figures, one of the reasons why I was put in my position, but I am finding it hard to concentrate and I’ve caught myself acting very… un-Kate-like.”

“I think we have all had times like those,” Ken remarked.

“It’s not only that,” she added. “I have moments when I feel that I’m becoming feral and I’ve had predatory thoughts, myself, toward those who are prey-types. I’m afraid the longer I am merged with a lion, the more like a lion I become. ” She looked up with fresh moisture rimming her eyes. “I am becoming more like Angel Celeste every day, and I constantly worry about when I’m going to snap and kill someone…”

“Carson Weathers!” Ethan interrupted, getting to his feet. “I haven’t checked in on him for hours! He’s probably soiled himself by now, and is weak from hunger or thirst!” The sheriff left Kate in mid-confession and rushed out of the room.

“What the devil’s he talking about?” Andresen groused.

Kate’s voice was hoarse. “What does Carson have to do with anything?” she wailed, still emotional over her revelation. “We were talking about me!”

Ken and Kazama traded glances and the mayor gave the surgeon a subtle nod. “Carson Weathers attacked his wife Yvonne just before the alien airship landed,” the otter explained. Kate and Andresen both looked shocked. “Ethan and Rod managed to stop him before he killed her, but it was not without a fight. I had to perform surgery on both Yvonne and Rod while you all were chatting with the Sori.”

“Will they be okay?” Andresen asked.

“Both will live, although Yvonne’s condition was critical. Jessica is watching over her now. Rod’s injuries just required a few stitches, but he’ll be alright with some rest.”

Kate wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. “First Angel, now Carson. I may be next.” She looked at Ken with a look of defeat. “Let me volunteer. I’m a danger to those around me.”

The cougar cleared his throat and drummed his claws on the table for a moment. “You aren’t alone in your feelings, Kate,” he said cryptically. “I’ve had others tell me virtually the same thing – and I’ve felt it myself. We’ve all had to keep a rein on the instincts of the animals we’re merged with, and it’s already been suggested to me to segregate the carnivores from the herbivore population.” He looked at her for another long moment, but then he shook his head. “No, your request is denied. You’ll not be the first.”

Kate heaved a heavy, audible sigh. After several heartbeats, she looked up at Kazama. “What about Yvonne’s little boy, the panda cub?”

“Dale was with Jeanette Colton when Carson attacked his wife; she’s still watching over him for now.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

There was a tap at the door and Ethan let himself back into the office. When he returned to his seat, he looked around at the others. “Carson’s filled up the coffee can I left for him to pee in, plus he’s hungry. I’ve got Rocky preparing something for him so he’ll be healthy enough to stand trial whenever we get to him, but he’s still locked up in the closet I put him in. We’ve got to have somewhere better to keep him penned.”

“I can probably arrange something in one of the conference rooms we aren’t using yet,” said the engineer. “I can have Arion drop several panels of glassteel for walls and a door.”

“Trial,” Ken repeated beneath his breath. “First Angel, now Carson – and we still have no precedent for what they did aside of temporary insanity.”

“I have a suggestion,” Ethan said.

“Anything, please,” the mayor prompted.

The bear looked from face to face. “Carson seems to be back in his right mind again, but that doesn’t excuse what he did. He seems very remorseful, and while he remembers everything that happened, he said he felt like a spectator while the cat within him took control; that’s the same thing Angel said. Yvonne is a goat and the bobcat saw her as lunch. He is glad he didn’t kill her, but he did ask me to kill him for what he did.”

“Your suggestion is to just execute him?” Andresen asked.

“Oddly enough, it isn’t – at least not directly.”

Ken frowned. “Okay, you’re going to have to explain that one.”

“Let’s tell Carson what the Sori have told us, and let him volunteer on his own. If he makes it, that will be a victory toward him and the rest of us shedding our feral instincts. If he doesn’t… justice is served.”

The group fell quiet and they were all so for long minutes, but eventually Ken felt the need to speak. “I still don’t like it, but I can’t think of anything better. Ethan, you can be with me when I talk to him, but it will just be the three of us. I want to really impress upon him the seriousness of his actions, but also the potential danger. If he doesn’t volunteer on his own, and we don’t get any other volunteers, it may become his sentence.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Human Extinction

“Yes, that is right. We have a volunteer who understands the risk, and we have a genetic sample of his tissue that was collected prior to his transformation.”

“Please understand, Friend Arion, that there is no assurance that the process developed for Sori will work for Human.”

“This has been explained, stressed, understood and acknowledged, Ambassador.”

“Very well. An airship will be launched soon with a medical science team to land just outside the Lake Gate, and a second airship will transport all materials necessary to the process to the surface. There, the team will grow an outpost dome in which to work.”

“Would it not be easier to transfer our volunteer up to your voidship for the process?”

“Easier, yes, but not possible at this time. Voidship 74,857 is on a time schedule, its original mission to retrieve any survivors from Serallasion and then proceed outward to survey a potentially habitable planet in orbit around another star.”

“After being alone for so long, you will not be returning to Sorini?”

“That is correct, but is good. I am with my people again, and I will be doing that which I have been trained to do, extensive survey of a new world to expand knowledge. Many advances of our methods and technologies have been made since I have been away, so I will be learning too.”

“Understood, Friend Zaizen. When should your airships be expected?”

“Both will drop from orbit in three hours. Medical team is preparing materials now.”

“How long will your medical team be here?”

“Process is slow, will take much time for first volunteer, and then only after much research and testing. If successful, Sori will remain on Serallasion as long as necessary to process all humans.”

“If successful, will your voidship return to retrieve your team once they have finished?”

“Sorini will send another. As with 74,857, another voidship will retrieve medical team and then proceed outward to explore another world to collect more knowledge.”

“Do any of your voidships ever return to Sorini?”

“Some, but not all. Most have been away many years.”

“If you will be leaving with the voidship, how will your medical science team communicate with us here? Have you instructed them to utilize the water plant you used to learn human English?”

“Native water plant was useful, but would Friend Arion be willing to act as an interpreter between Sori and Human? Team would need access to your wonderful techwatches or tablets.”

“I do not believe Mr. Robeson or Dr. Kate would be against this request. As for myself, I would be willing, as this would allow me to increase my own knowledge of the Sori.”

“Exchanges of information is good.”

“Indeed.”

“Request discussion with Dr. Kate, please. Using a Human term, I wish to farewell with her before we depart. There will be no more communication between us when voidship resumes its mission.”

“Certainly. I will have her contact you at her earliest convenience before you depart.”

“Thank you, Friend Arion.”

***

“Yes, Arion?” asked the lioness. The device was set to audio-only with no video coming through and her voice was barely above a whisper.

The SI dropped his volume level to correspond with hers. “Dr. Kate, our friend Zaizen wishes to say good-bye to you before her ship sets sail. They will be dropping a medical science team with all necessary materials within three hours, but once they have safely deposited their cargoes and returned, the voidship will be departing to continue its mission to another star.”

“Zaizen is leaving with them?”

“That is correct.”

“I can’t say I blame her. She was here alone for over two decades, but now she’s back with her kind again.” There was a pause. “They are leaving their medical team behind? I assumed the ship would stay in orbit until they knew whether or not the process would work.”

“Their medical science team will remain on Bellerophon for the duration of the process, which could be a considerable amount of time. If successful with Mr. Weathers, they will stay until the last furman has become human again. If they are not successful with the first attempt, they intend to stay and work out the process for as long as it takes. Only then, they will signal for retrieval by another voidship.”

“Did you give them what they wanted?”

“Mostly. I have learned a great deal about their technologies in the few days they have been in contact with me, and I believe I have worked out the preliminaries where they can be begin the long road to producing an Artificial Intelligence of their own. I have also worked out a viable solution so that they will be able modify our video communication technologies to their own. They operate on a different set of frequencies than we use, which is why our initial hails were unrecognized by their systems even though I was transmitting using their primary language. They could have had video capabilities long before now – it just never occurred to them to try.”

“You understand their technology now?”

“Once I understood the hexadecimal equivalent of the binary processes they utilize, I was able to tap into and download the voidship’s entire database archive, but only after printing additional data storage units for Arion-1 to contain it. I have not yet scanned through it all, but have initially focused my attention on the technical information appropriate to what we need.”

“And what is it we need?”

“Using Terran technology, I do believe we can apply their shielding advancements to protect future ships from the rays that caused your genetic mutations in the first place. According to the Sori, these rays are abundant in free interstellar space and caused many such transformations in their own people before they learned what it was, where it originated and how to protect against it. I still have much research to do with the information, but once I have a solution that will apply to my own systems, I can transmit the resolution to Arion-2 so that my counterpart can implement it there, and in turn relay it back to Earth.”

“They know where these rays originate?” Kate asked in amazement.

“They are emitted from red dwarf stars, the most common star type. Some exoplanets around such stars have been considered habitable for human colonization, but now that we have this knowledge, it is conceivable that these kind of mutations or worse might occur without special shielding. This information must be transmitted back to Earth or the human race will only remain human if it stays within the protection of its own solar system.”

“It will be many decades before Earth receives that solution,” Kate mused aloud. “If Earth has continued to send out ships to other habitable planets, they may have already seeded multiple planets with additional populations of furmankind unintentionally.”

“This would be a logical assumption on our part,” Arion agreed. “Whenever you are ready to talk to Zaizen one last time, you only need to contact her via your tech devices as you would any other. Once they have left orbit, however, you will be unable to reach her.”

“Let me get dressed and find a suitable place to call her from. Ken and I were taking a much-needed afternoon nap and he’s still sleeping.”

“A nap, Dr. Kate?”

“Yeah, cats are well-known for multiple sleep periods throughout the day, and since we’re all getting closer to our base animals, this is an attribute we’ve discovered recently. I’ll call her in a few minutes.”

“As you wish, Dr. Kate.”

***

“Friend Kate, it is good to see you one last time,” said the alien’s image from the screen of the lioness’ tablet. The Sori ship had not yet implemented the Terran technology that Arion had provided to give them video communication capabilities, but Zaizen still had the devices that had been given to her. A row of instrument panels provided the background behind her friend, and although Kate could not read any of the information displayed there, it was comfortingly familiar in its design.

“I didn’t want you to leave without wishing you and your people well.”

“Is kind and appreciated. Thank you for your friendship and patience with this one. For the short time we have known one another, you helped make my alone time more bearable. If you and your people had not come to Serallasion and activated beacon, I would still be alone. Thank you.”

“You are very welcome, Friend Zaizen. Be well and be happy. Goodbye.”

“Good-byes, Friend Kate. Be well and happy too.”

***

Several hours later, two of the Sori spherical airships landed in tandem only paces away of one another next to the crater lake. From within one of them, four of the hairy, dinosaur-like aliens stepped out into the sunlight of 51 Pegasi. Awaiting to greet them were several Furs standing just outside the open Lake Gate.

The aliens looked around at the ground, the sky, the lake and one another before finally acknowledging the furman presence. They seemed to hesitate at first, but then one stepped forward with the other three following in single file behind it. They stopped several paces away from their greeters, and then one at a time and in turn, they all held up each of their hands, all digits spread out wide.

“Repeat the gesture,” Arion directed from each of the furman party’s techwatches.

“I don’t have four hands,” Andresen murmured in reply.

“It does not matter. It is a show of respect and friendliness, much as you would with a handshake. The open hands symbolize greeting you in friendship and bearing no weapons.”

Almost in unison, each of the Furs held up their hands and spread out their stubby fingers. The alien in the forefront replied with a human-inspired nod of the head and then gave them a genuine smile of its own.

Without waiting for a verbal exchange, Kate stepped forward with the strap of a cloth bag draped over one shoulder. From within this, she pulled out a tablet that was already activated and handed it to the lead alien. This being’s black and brown mixed body hair was impeccably groomed and its movements were graceful despite its dinosauria resemblance. It accepted the tablet and Arion spoke from it with several phrases in the Sori primary language. The creature blinked in surprise and then looked at Kate. It spoke several words and then waited for Arion to translate for them.

“Sori Rialsis,” repeated the synthetic intelligence. “I am landing party leader.”

“Well met, Leader Rialsis,” Kate replied. “I am Dr. Kate,” and then she gestured toward the mayor just behind her, “and this is our leader Mayor Ken.”

“Rialsis will do. Well met, Friend Mayorken.”

“Welcome to this world,” the cougar said in greeting. “We are thankful for your assistance. You may call me Ken.”

“We are grateful for chance to exchange more knowledge, Friend Ken.”

Kate then reached into her bag and pulled out three more tablets. She had not known how many would be in the party, so she had brought out ten of the spare units they had in storage. To the three other Sori, she handed one to each to use for communication with the humans they would be working with. There were also individual techwatches for their use in her bag, but Kate would present them with instruction on their use before they left them alone for the day.

“Sori Anano.”

“Sori Nilrem.”

“Sori Mijel.”

Each of these beings looked excited to get an alien device of their own, but Anano and Mijel immediately placed theirs inside marsupial pouches beneath their hair. Kate noted that the Sori had sent two males and two females, and briefly wondered if any of them were mated to the others in the group. She shook her head mentally; she should not be having such thoughts of people she had just met. If these were two mated couples, it was not her business to know.

There was movement at the other airship and she looked over toward it as Ken and Rialsis began a conversation relayed and translated both directions through Arion. An opening had appeared in the crystal ball-like vessel and two more Sori stepped down a ramp pushing rather large containers with rounded edges using something analogous to an anti-gravity pallet jack. She watched them take the boxes several yards out away from the airship and then lower them to rest atop the crater weeds growing there. They pulled the jack out from beneath the containers and then returned to the airship. It was all very familiar. Moments later, they emerged with more boxes, which they deposited with the others. As the conversation continued behind her, Kate watched the other Sori pair unload sixteen boxes in all before they returned to their ship and closed up the curved opening in the crystalline surface.

Then without any prior warning, the airship jumped straight up into the air with nary a sound, although the lioness could feel air rushing in to occupy the space of vacuum the sphere left behind it. There was no roar of rockets or flames of heat, and the other Sori did not even look up as their secondary airship boosted toward its mothership in orbit.

She looked behind her at her companions and Will Andresen was craning his head upward with a hand shadowing his eyes as he followed the progress of the shining orb up into the heavens. She glanced up too, but it was already lost to distance.

“You are more than welcome to set up your outpost within our town,” Ken was saying to the aliens. “There is no need to stay out here by the lake.”

“We require the resources of this lake. It will be beneficial to our presence.”

“As you wish. If there is anything you require that we can provide, you only have to ask through Arion using these tablets.”

“With your release, we will begin the construction of outpost.”

“Right away? We had hoped to give you a tour of our town and facilities.”

“Very much like to visit your town and facilities, but first we make outpost, then tour.”

“Okay, that sounds good,” Ken said. “Do you need any assistance?”

“We do not.”

“Right. You also do not need our permission to do your work, but if it helps, you have our release.”

“Thank you. We start now.”

With that finality, the four Sori walked toward the cases that had been unloaded and immediately set out to open them. Ken and his party watched for several moments before the mayor turned back toward the gate to their awaiting trucks. With the exception of the engineer, they all climbed into the vehicle.

“Are you coming, Will?” Ken asked from the driver’s seat.

“No, I think I will stay and watch a while. If they’re going to grow one of them domes, I want to see how they do it.”

“Suit yourself, but you’ll have to walk back.” The mayor looked skyward and added, “Afternoon rains will be here soon.”

The red wolf grinned. “I’m healthy enough to survive a little rain.”

***

For the next two hours, Will Andresen watched as the Sori assembled the outer framework of an outpost dome larger than the one that Zaizen had been posted at before the coming of the meteorite. Once the initial outer frame was done, they put up frames for several partitions inside and the engineer supposed they were internal walls and a flooring. He did not recognize the metal alloy they assembled, but they put them together not with screws, bolts or rivets, but with what looked like a tube containing an olive green gel they squeezed out where needed. He had not actually been out to the original dome beyond the crater, but had seen numerous photos and some samples of the materials that had been brought back.

Once they had finished with the large dome, they set out to work on two others that were somewhat smaller and interconnected with the first. It reminded the engineer of a cluster of large igloos, although without the passageway tunnel entrances.

When the skeletal structures of all three domes were assembled, Andresen watched as they opened up several canisters and then applied a dark green paste around the foundations of them all with bulbs inserted into a type of squeeze gun.

It was only when this activity finished that the aliens noticed that the red wolf was still with them, settled on his haunches among the crater weed. He wagged his tail and gave them a friendly wave, but none of them seemed to understand the gesture.

One of them with sand-hued hair reached into her marsupial pouch and pulled out the tablet that had been given her. Andresen watched her hold it close to her mouth and speak, and then she mimicked his hand wave toward its screen. Mijel listened for a moment, said something to her companions, and then all four of them turned and gave the engineer a return wave. He smiled at the exchange.

Then a Sori with black hair so dark that it was almost blue walked over to the Fur and stopped several feet from him. The male named Nilrem held his tablet in one of his multiple hands and spoke into it while looking directly into the wolf’s amber eyes.

“Is there something we can do for you?” Arion translated from the device.

“No, I am an engineer and was merely curious to watch you construct your base.”

“Is a task so menial of interest to you?”

“Indeed, yes,” Will answered. “Your people and mine do things differently, so I just wanted to see how you worked. It really was interesting to me.”

“You may return to your people now,” Nilrem told him. “We will rest and then have sustenance. It will rain on us soon and we have a temporary abode to rest in for the remainder of this day.”

“What about your outpost? Will the rain harm your construction?”

“The rain will assist in the growth. Is good.”

Andresen got up onto his feet and scratched at an ear. “I can’t say I understand that, but if you say it is so, I’m good with it. I will return to Tellus and see you later.”

“Friend Arion said to wish you a good day.”

Andresen grinned. “Good day to you as well.” With that, the red wolf dropped to all fours and then padded quietly back in through the Lake Gate, which he left open, and then back out towards town as the first sprinkling drops of rain began to fall.

***

When Will Andresen and Ethan Edwards returned in a flatbed truck the next morning, followed by another with Ken and Kate, they were amazed at the sight they beheld. From the ground up to a third of the height of the largest dome, there were now solid walls of dark green plant life growing over the metal framework. It looked almost as if a thick layer of rubber had been poured into a mold over part of the skeleton. An equal amount of this growth covered the other connected domes, and with closer inspection, it had also formed a thick, rubbery flooring inside them.

“So that’s what they meant that the rains would assist in the growth of their outpost,” the wolf pondered aloud.

“They grow their buildings over a framework?” Ethan asked.

“Apparently this kind anyway.”

“I wish we could do the same. It’s taking a long while to put up each of our buildings in the town.”

“We still have four and a half years until the other ship arrives,” Ken remarked. “We don’t have to be in a hurry.”

“Says you,” Ethan retorted. “I’m tired of living in a military tent on a pallet or a cot. I’m ready for a house and a proper bed!”

“It looks like our alien friends went for an early morning swim,” Kate mused aloud as she crawled out of the second truck. They all followed her gaze out toward the lake and saw all four of the Sori emerging from the water. It was just warm enough that a thin layer of mist covered the surface of the lake and seeing the dinosauria rising from the waters in the morning light was a little eerie.

When all four were on dry land, their fur dripping in the sunlight, everyone exchanged open hand greetings.

Rialsis spoke several words in his native language, and although none of the Sori had their Terran devices on them, Arion automatically translated through Ken’s techwatch.

“Good morning to you, Friends. We will be ready for tour of your civilization momentarily.”

“Good morning,” Ken replied. “Please take your time. We can wait.”

Arion’s voice relayed the message through the techwatch at a raised volume so that the Sori could hear it. The aliens went to a container where they each retrieved a towel-like cloth and proceeded to dry themselves. It was either a quality of the cloth or of the Sori fur, but they were completely dry within moments. They then worked to help groom one another with a set of brushes, and by the time they had finished and approached the Furs, each had fur that was smooth and silky. Zaizen’s fur had never looked this good when she was with them, but she had never had another Sori to assist her.

Rialsis gave the mayor and his party a pleasant smile and spoke a few words into the techwatch he now wore on one of his wrists; all four of the Sori were now wearing them, finding them less bulky than carrying around one of the tablets just for communication purposes.

“We would see your city now, please,” his translated words said. “Our outpost will continue to grow with the morning light, so we have no other duties at this time.”

The cougar gestured toward the trucks. “Would you prefer to ride with us into town?”

“Will walk, thank you.”

“As you wish.”

Ken and Kate walked with their new companions and engaged them in idle conversation while Andresen and Ethan brought up the rear in the vehicles.

“I don’t think they like our trucks,” Ethan mused to Will. “Every Sori we meet prefers to walk. Surely they don’t walk everywhere back on their world.”

“Who knows,” the engineer replied. “Maybe they do when they don’t need to go far, using their airships for everything else.”

“Have you figured out how their crystal balls fly yet?”

“No, I’ve not been inside one yet. Maybe eventually.”

Arion’s voice spoke from their techwatches. “When you have time, Mr. Andresen, I can show you the schematics for them.”

“They gave you the schematics?”

“Not specifically, Mr. Andresen, but they were included in the data I copied from their system when they gave me access.”

“Did they know you did that or did you just take the info while you were in there?”

“Yes, Mr. Andresen, it was done with their knowledge. The Sori are free with exchanges of information.”

“What did you exchange with them?”

“The process for video telecommunication and the foundation for creating their own Artificial Intelligence. The latter will take them years of research and development.”

“If they gave you all their information,” Ethan remarked, “why didn’t you show them how to create their AI to completion?”

“Their technology is not exactly like ours, Mr. Edwards, and it will take research of my own with their database before I fully understand it myself. I did not give them technology toward an AI, only our data and historical development on how mankind created it. They will apply their own sciences and applications toward that end, but they will follow their own pathways of understanding. It remains to be seen how long it will take them to develop a system that I may be able to communicate with in the future, if ever.”

***

Yvonne Weathers slowly floated toward consciousness. She had been kept asleep since the day her husband attacked her out of the blue to allow her injuries to heal, but now the goat would also need to heal from the psychological trauma of the experience.

When she finally opened her slit-pupil eyes, the first face the doe saw was that of Dr. Fernando. She was momentarily disoriented, but the skunk’s gentle smile kept her calm.

“Hello,” he said in a quiet voice. “Welcome back.”

“Doctor… Fernando…” she murmured in a quiet voice, having to swallow between words. Her throat felt sore and tender, and her voice came out barely louder than a whisper. The counselor reached out and tenderly brushed aside a strand of her course hair from her forehead.

"I know you probably don’t feel up to a conversation,” he said, “but there are several people here who need to know what happened to you.”

“What… happened…” she repeated. She closed her eyes for a moment, but then snapped them back open in a panic. “C-C-Carson!” she croaked.

“Calmly, my dear,” Fernando said, caressing her forehead with a finger. “He can no longer hurt you.”

“Where…?”

“He is – contained. You will not have to see him again.”

“Dale?”

“Your son is safe. He is with the Coltons.”

“Thank… thank you.” She closed her eyes at this, but was in no danger of falling back into sleep. “Who… is here?”

“Mayor Ken, Dr. Kate, Mr. Edwards, Mr. Vincent, Dr. Kazama and Ms. Heald.”

She opened her eyes again and looked around. Surrounding her was a crowd of mostly carnivores, and she had sudden flashbacks to her husband’s claws and fangs. She began to hyperventilate with a bit of panic and clenched her eyes shut.

“No! N-no-no predators!”

Fernando waved his hands toward the others in the medical recovery room of the Central Authority building. “You heard the lady,” he said quietly. “Everybody out — all but Satoru, Jessica and myself. You can listen in to what she tells us via techwatch.”

Yvonne heard several bodies shuffle away, and then two faces joined the skunk’s, an otter and a red panda. “Th… thank you,” she whispered in a calmer voice. She looked up at Dr. Kazama. “How… hurt?”

“Maybe we should discuss that later,” suggested the river otter.

“Want… to know.”

Kazama nodded and twitched his whiskers. “Very well. We had to repair your throat, but it was mostly muscle damage and your main blood vessels escaped serious injury. Once your hair grows back over it, no one will ever know it happened. Your left wrist is broken and will be in a synthplast cast for several weeks, which means you won’t be able to get down on all fours. Thankfully, you can still get around on two legs. You’re bruised in several places and will be sore, but otherwise you will be okay. I would recommend bed rest for several more days, and for you to allow me and Jessica to care for you in the meantime.”

Yvonne gave the otter a brief smile and simply nodded. Dr. Fernando took her good hand in his. “Now, take your time and tell us what happened. If it becomes painful for you to remember, just know that you are no longer in any danger and that we are here for you.”

“Okay… please help… sit up.”

Fernando and Jessica assisted the capra woman up into a sitting position, and once she was settled, she nodded and looked at the trio awaiting her words.

Amid stops and starts due to her injured throat, Yvonne told her story. She had been tending the sheep while they grazed on crater weed, and her husband stopped by on his way to a construction site to let her know he had left their son Dale with the Colton family. They had fallen to idle chit chat, and while talking together, Yvonne saw an abrupt change come over Carson; he became almost feral in front of her eyes. The sheep in the paddock panicked and scattered, having picked up on the sudden danger scent before she did. Then without warning, he jumped for her throat as if she was prey. In sudden terror and horrendous pain, she had shrieked out loudly, hoping someone would hear and come to her aid before he crushed her throat. It was then she had blacked out.

Yvonne broke down and cried from the horror of it all. Jessica gently put an arm around her and let the injured woman shed her tears into her shoulder.

“W-why? Why would… he hurt me?” she sobbed. “We had… no argument. All was… fine.” She swallowed hard and looked up at the red panda. “We were… uh, being flirty… Why would he… hurt me?”

“We think it has something to do with the transformation,” Fernando answered. “There are some who have had trouble like this. The changes gave them claws, fangs, fur and tails, but some of them have proven that they’ve taken on their predatory attributes as well and their parent animal tendencies surface and briefly take control of them. This may have happened to… him.” He refrained from saying the bobcat’s name, for fear of frightening her further.

“What… triggered it?”

Dr. Kazama shrugged his slender shoulders. “Honestly, we don’t know. It could be a chemical imbalance in the brain, or it may be genetic memory of the species heredity. Some don’t seem to be bothered at all, while others are struggling to keep their humanity in control.”

“Didn’t do it… on purpose?”

“I doubt it, but it was still strong enough to take control of him.”

“How is he… now?”

“He’s locked up where he cannot hurt anyone else, but those who have watched over him said he is himself again. He’s remorseful of what he’s done and unable to forgive himself.”

Yvonne fell quiet and they could see she was sorting through her feeling. Finally, she looked up at each of her companions, one at a time. “I don’t… hate him,” she said at last, “but don’t… want to see him. I’m afraid.”

Fernando nodded. “That’s understandable. Listen, my dear, we’re going to let you rest your throat for now. Sleep if you wish, but we will be nearby in case you need anything.” The counselor put a hand up to his chest and added, “even if it’s only to talk things out. That’s what I’m here for.”

***

The Sori domes were ready for habitation a day later and the aliens began moving their equipment from the cases inside. They courteously declined help from the furman and remained busy well into the evening hours, coming out only to visit briefly with those who came to check in on them, and to take an occasional dip in the lake waters. While the Sori were never disrespectful or rude to the Terrans, they tended to keep mainly to themselves. Unlike Zaizen, who was alone for so many years, these beings had one another for company. The furmen hoped that while the aliens had only been on Bellerophon a short time, perhaps they might open up more as time passed.

Once they had their abode all in order, they wasted no time starting their research. Dr. Kazama provided them with Carson Weathers’ original, unaltered DNA sample so they could make comparisons to his current makeup.

***

Sean Barringer stood in front of the mayor’s desk with his large rabbit feet planted defiantly apart and gesturing in the air with his arms. The War Admiral pilot was angry, but it was all he could do to keep himself from pounding a fist onto the cougar’s desktop.

“We’ve got Trina Barron tied up with fencing wire, staked to the ground and guarded. She’s growling and gnawing at the wire, for what good that will do her. I hope she chokes herself on it!”

Ken looked deeply troubled; another carnivore had attacked an herbivore as prey. “How is he?”

“We got Dominic free of her clutches quick enough, but he’ll lose that raccoon tail of his. I’m sure he’ll have nightmares of demon ocelots gnawing on it for months! Dr. Kazama is seeing to him now.”

The cougar raised his techwatch to his lips. “Arion, can you inform Ethan and Rod of the situation and send them out to the Waterworks building to collect her, please?”

“Right away, Mr. Mayor.”

Ken put his head in his hands and stared down at the desktop. “This is getting worse,” he murmured.

"Sir," Sean interjected, “all of the herbivores are frightened. None of us want to have anything to do with any of the carnivore types now. It’s time you acted in everyone’s best interests.”

The cougar looked up. “What would you suggest? I can’t lock up half the population like zoo animals before any of them have done anything.”

The tan and white, fuzzy lop-eared rabbit dropped into a seat and then put his elbows up onto the edge of the table. “We want to segregate the city,” he stated firmly. “Paint an imaginary line down the middle of Main Street and forbid the carnivores from crossing over into the other side. It’s for our safety. We’ve already talked about traveling in pairs so no one is caught alone like Dominic was.”

“Traveling in pairs is probably a good idea,” Ken replied, “but don’t you see how splitting the town will curtail work on the rest of the city? We need everyone working on it, and some of those skill sets cross species lines.”

“If these attacks continue, what’s that going to do for your precious work schedules?” Sean asked hotly. “How are you going to keep your people safe if you can’t keep them safe?” The cougar looked at him darkly, but he did not have an answer to that.

“I will discuss options with my command team,” Ken said.

“A command team that consists of all carnivores!” Sean exclaimed.

The cougar looked at him. “Dr. Kazama is not a carnivore.”

The rabbit snorted. “River otters are carnivores, Your Honor!” He said the last in pure derision. “Otters may not hunt down large prey, but they’re still meat eaters. He fits the description.”

Ken sighed forcefully. “Maybe the herbivores can pick someone from amongst themselves to join my team so we can figure out something together.”

For the first time since he had stepped into the room, Sean smiled. “We have done this already. I am the one they elected.”

“You?”

“Of course, me — why do you think I’m the one in here ranting at you? Those are my people, and we need representation in your discussions.”

Ken got up to his feet and the rabbit matched him. The mayor stared at him only a moment and then nodded. He held out a hand and Sean took it. “Welcome to the command team, Mr. Barringer,” he said. “Hopefully we can come up with a solution we can all live with.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“The first thing I should tell you is not common knowledge yet, but our new alien friends think they may be able to reverse the transformation process.”

“That’s not a secret. There’s been talk of nothing else for days.”

“All you’ve heard were rumors based upon someone’s fantasies, but now we have something real to go on.”

“What’s the difference? People are excited.”

“As always with rumors, everyone acts under the assumptions they think are true.”

“Okay, so what’s changed?”

Ken returned to his seat and motioned for the pilot to do the same. “We haven’t made any official announcements concerning the rumors because we didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up until we knew for certain it would work. In the early days of their interstellar space program, the Sori encountered the same mysterious rays that caused us to change. They had mutations, same as we did, but it took them years to find a solution.”

“Will it really work on us?”

“Unfortunately, none of us know that, including them. The Sori have a different physiology than us, so they are here now to research the possibility of applying modifications to their processes to work with our DNA.”

“They are here to help us? I thought the new aliens were here just to take the place of the original science team that got wiped out.”

Ken nodded. “That’s the general story we’re going with for now. Dr. Kazama collected DNA from each of us before we went into cryo and he’s provided unaltered DNA for them to compare to what’s been mutated.”

Sean leaned forward. “Is this generalized or did you give them someone’s specific DNA?”

The mayor nodded. “You know about the attack on Yvonne Weathers?”

The rabbit’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, her husband went berserk and tried to eat her.”

“There is no guarantee that the aliens will discover if there’s anything they can do, but if they do manage to come up with something, there has to be a first attempt with any process. Carson has volunteered to be the first.”

“You said there was no guarantee that it will work.”

“That’s right. The process might be successful, but it could also kill him instead. Right now, there’s no way to know. Until there’s a procedure to even try, we’re keeping him contained.”

“Did Carson actually volunteer, or was he summarily placed on the short list?”

“Actually, he volunteered as penance for his crime, and yes, he’s fully aware of the danger.”

“You may have to add Trina Barron to that volunteer list,” the rabbit said, slumping back into his chair.

“We can be hopeful that the Sori will be able to find a way to reverse what’s happened to us all, but in the meantime, we’ve got to find a way on our own to keep our people under control. Segregation is a short-term solution at best, even if we were to set up a separate town in the other crater just for the herbivores, but eventually we’ll still need to come together. If neither we nor our alien friends can come up with a solution, it’s likely we’ll completely wipe out ourselves in the end, and it won’t just be between carnivore and herbivore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mother nature never meant for all predators to just get along as we do as half-human hybrids. In the real world, even carnivores have enemies among the other predators they have to compete with for food and water, so it wouldn’t just stop even if all the herbivores were killed off. The closer our animal tendencies come to the surface, the bigger the danger to us all. This colony could fail spectacularly, and it may not even be this alien world that does it to us.”

Sean rubbed his face with both hands. “If you believe in prayer, you’d better pray that the aliens are able to find a way to fix us, or the fate of the human race could be extinction for anyone who leaves the protection of Earth’s solar system.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Penance

Kate looked up at the night sky and spotted Dei and Lao, the two irregular-shaped asteroids always together in orbit as small moons. Both were full tonight, which made them easier to pick out from the plethora of stars overhead. There were only wispy cirrus clouds above, but they were few enough to make stargazing simple. The lioness was reclined upon her back on a bed of crater weed out away from the minimal lights of the colony, taking a bit of personal time to relax and unwind from the demands of the day; Her furman shorts were set aside on the ground beside her; due to the temperate climate in the crater, she had stopped wearing a top of any kind.

There would always be a lot of work to do, but the town of Tellus Mater was slowly taking shape in the months they had been upon the surface of this strangely familiar world. Due to the complications of the transformation that had turned them all into anthropomorphic hybrids of humanity, the population had become mostly divided between carnivore and herbivore types. The herbivores were free to come and go anywhere they wished within the town, but whenever they were among the predator types, they now traveled in groups of two or more for their safety. The carnivores, however, were forbidden to enter the posted herbivore sections of the town unless they had an armed escort of the prey. The Central Authority building and the park surrounding it were considered neutral territory. It was not an ideal situation, but the segregation mostly worked to keep species-related conflicts to a minimum, although it strained relationships in mixed-species families. However, there had been no further deaths since the edict had been announced and even grumbling about the rule had grown quieter over the months.

The resident aliens had mostly kept to themselves in their abode out by the lake, coming into town or inviting others out to meet with them only on rare occasion. During waking hours, at least two of the Sori had remained busy researching what they called the genetic filtering project, while their other team members flew off in their solitary crystal ball airship to continue the original scientific mission of the previous team.

“Dr. Kate, are you still awake?” asked a quiet voice from her techwatch.

The lioness smiled. “Good evening, Arion. Yes, I’m just decompressing out in a field.”

“That presents an interesting visual image.”

“How so?”

“A flattened balloon of Kathleen Ruston fluttering gently across the crater on the valley breeze as if it was a Windsweeper.”

Kate laughed aloud, a sure sign that she was feeling relaxed. “My extra sixteen pounds of Belle-weight has me sufficiently tethered to the ground, my friend.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

The lioness grinned, considering how human-like the SI was in that it could even imagine such thoughts without actual visual input.

“So, what I can I do for you?”

“The Sori have asked me to convey the message that they are now ready to try their genetic filtering procedure on our furman volunteer.”

Kate frowned. “I hope they’re sure. We’ve kept Carson and Trina in lockup for months, and although they’re both repentant of their crimes and back in their right minds, I would not wish to lose either of them to this untried process.”

“Rialsis reiterates that the method using human DNA is unproven, but they have reached a point where they can proceed no further without a live trial. Again, he stresses that there is no guarantee that the host will survive the process and that the volunteer be fully aware of this.”

“Does Rialsis know how long it will take before we know if it’s working?”

“Using Sori history as a vague template, the first effects should be noticeable within days while the genetic filtering takes place at the molecular level. It may take longer before it is known how far the process will go before it is considered a successful progression.”

Kate rubbed a hand across her eyes. “Our transformations took place over decades while we were in cryo. If a reversal takes anywhere as long, we’ll all be too old or too used to our anthro bodies to want to change by then.”

“I have heard our researchers discussing this and Mijel stated that the ‘renovation’ procedure on the Sori to revert them back fully took the equivalent of four and a half weeks.”

“So quick?”

“The process for human physiology could take longer – or shorter, conversely. It is currently an unknown.”

Kate reached for her shorts. “Please relay what you told me to Ken, and then we can meet at his office. We’ll need to inform Carson that the time has come to pay penance for his actions.”

***

Carson Weathers paced his jail cell on all fours, anxiety about his mortality foremost on his mind. The Central Authority building had never been designed with an actual jail in mind, but the engineer had repurposed an extra conference room into a chamber with three cells separated from one another using glassteel panels produced from Arion’s material processing fabrication printers. Each cell had a bunk with a light blanket, a sink, toilet and a plain floor rug. The wall panels were smoky gray that were only somewhat translucent, and the doors were clear, but all were relatively bulletproof. There was a diamond-shaped pattern of small holes in each door to allow for conversation as needed. There was no danger of anyone shooting up the place, but it was well and truly protective against the fangs and claws of furmen who suffered the temporary insanity brought on through their genetic mutation.

Carson Weathers and Trina Barron occupied two of the cells on a semi-permanent basis and the third had only been occasionally utilized if a carnivore Fur felt their humanity slipping away. More than one person had requested being locked away during that time, to be released only when it had passed, so for now that one was little more than a temporary holding cell.

Ethan and Rod took turns tending to their prisoners, bringing them meals and sometimes just sitting with them for company. Despite that Carson had injured the snow leopard, Rod’s wounds had healed up nicely and he held no animosity toward the bobcat.

Others visited on occasion, but since the date of the initial attack, Yvonne had not come to see her husband. Carson missed his wife and their son, but could blame no one but himself for what he had done to her. Angelo Bonavita sometimes came to see Trina, and he would often read to her from some of the novels he had brought with him on his tablet; out of sheer boredom, Carson would listen in too.

At the moment, however, the ocelot was asleep in her cell and there was no one else in the makeshift jail chamber. Carson had been informed of his upcoming procedure late in the evening before, but he had gotten very little sleep through the night. He had no way of knowing if this might be his last moments among the living, but he was also fully aware that he could have been summarily executed long before now.

Even if he survived the initial procedure, he could still die from it later as his body adjusted to the changes. Would he be awake throughout the whole thing, and would it hurt? He had no answers.

Without a tech device nor even a window to the outside, the bobcat had no idea what time it was, but guessed it was still early morning. Ethan and Rod would collect him just before sunup to be transported to the Sori dome. The aliens had recommended that he go in with an empty stomach, so he had not even gotten a proverbial last meal.

While the crimes and incarceration of the two Furs were known throughout the colony, knowledge of the greenlight for the genetic filtering experiment had been kept from the general population. There would always be someone awake around the clock due to the diurnal and nocturnal instincts of the varied species, so they had chosen to move the bobcat before daylight in order to keep questions about the transfer to a minimum.

He looked up when the main door opened. Mayor Robeson walked in quietly, followed by Ethan, Rod, Jessica and Dr. Kazama. The cougar approached the transparent door and put his hands into his pockets.

“Good morning, Your Honor,” Carson said quietly. He got up onto his feet and held his hands together behind the back of his red furman shorts.

“Good morning, Carson,” the mayor replied courteously. “Did you get any sleep?”

“None at all, but I guess that was to be expected.”

Ken nodded. “Despite what happened, none of us wish ill for you. We all sincerely hope this procedure of the Sori will be successful.”

“No more than I,” the bobcat replied, keeping his gaze on the floor. “If it succeeds, I’ll be human again, but I promise that I will willingly submit to any discipline or punishment you may come up with for my crime.” He then looked up and met no one’s eyes but the cougar’s. “If I don’t survive, please scatter my ashes somewhere over the rainforest. At least let something out there benefit from my life.”

“Do you have anything you want me to say to Yvonne?”

Carson thought for a moment and then spoke quietly with a tight throat. “Just tell her that I am sorry for what I’ve become, and that I hope she can one day forgive me, even if I don’t make it.”

“You’re not gone yet,” Ken reminded him, “so try to stay optimistic. Regardless, I will pass on your message. Are you ready?”

The bobcat only nodded and Ethan moved forward to unlock the glassteel panel. Carson stepped out meekly and then followed the sheriff. Rod shadowed them and was armed in case there was trouble, but the bobcat went along willingly without needing to be restrained. Kazama and Jessica brought up the rear in silence.

Ken watched the entourage leave the room. He was not needed for what would come next, so he reached for the light switch. He paused, and then looked into the cell containing Trina Barron. The ocelot slept soundly with her nose turned toward the far wall. If the process failed to work on Carson Weathers, Trina would be the next test subject.

“Just how many will it take?” Ken murmured to himself when he turned out the light and shut the door behind him.

When Carson stepped outside and approached the truck awaiting him, he looked up at the night sky and felt moisture rimming his eyes. It was the first time he had seen the stars in months and the scents on the air reflected the day’s session of rain, making everything smell clean and fresh. That was a nice send-off.

Without further hesitation, he climbed into the truck beside Ethan and settled in for the ride out to the alien’s research station. His mind was numb on the journey and the passage of time seemed quick. Before he knew it, the truck pulled through the Lake Gate.

All four of the Sori awaited him and his party. To the aliens, he was merely a volunteer for the process they had designed to return the furmen to their original selves. None of them were aware of his crime or his shame.

In unison, they hailed him with the hands-open greeting of courtesy. Without thinking, he returned the gesture automatically and then followed them inside the largest of the interconnected domes. Jessica and Kazama trailed him in, but Ethan and Rod remained outside with the truck.

He was led to a rear chamber and when he saw what was inside, he was surprised. He looked back at Dr. Kazama. “They’re putting me into cryo?” he asked.

“Yes and no,” the river otter answered. “You will go into an enforced sleep and the cryo pod you originally slept in will monitor and maintain your life signs. As when you were on the flight out, the pod will make sure your bodily wastes are removed and your muscles electrically stimulated to prevent atrophy while you sleep, although you won’t actually be in cryo. The Sori will initiate their procedure once you’re asleep and monitor your progress throughout the induced transformation.”

“Do you know what it is they will do to me?”

“From what I understand, your original DNA is being used as a template for what it should be, and the procedure will filter out everything in your genetic code throughout your body that does not match that template. This will happen at a substantially accelerated rate compared to the decades-long metamorphosis that occurred while we were on the way here.”

“That sounds painful.”

Kazama nodded. “I’m sure it would be if you were conscious. This is the reason for the cryo pod they have modified. What they will be doing here is a combination of Sori and Terran technologies. When they can detect no further activity, the process will be complete and then you will be awakened with a body that is no longer feline and no longer subject to the predatory instincts that caused your problem in the first place.”

“How long will I sleep?”

“I don’t know the answer to that,” the physician answered truthfully. “It could take weeks or even months, but it’s likely you won’t even be aware of the passage of time. When you awaken —”

“If I awaken,” the bobcat corrected.

“When you awaken,” Kazama repeated without change, “you will be a new man and will give hope to the rest of us.”

Carson looked at him quietly for a moment, and then looked at Jessica. The red panda gave him a reassuring smile, and then he glanced across the pod at the patient aliens that Arion had translated the entire exchange for them.

Then, at last, the bobcat nodded. “Okay, I’m about as ready as I will ever be. Doc, if I don’t survive, I just want to say thank you for giving me this chance at redemption.” He stuck out his hand and the otter grasped it firmly.

“We’ll have a beer the next time you see me. I have a stash in my personal effects that I’ve been saving for a special occasion.” Carson gave him a grin, something the physician had hoped for.

Jessica stepped forward with a familiar waste collection flange in her hands. The red panda flashed him a cute smile and then winked. “It’s time to drop your drawers and crawl into your pod. You know what it is I need to do with this.”

If Carson’s face had not been covered in fur, his cheeks would have flushed a deep red.

***

When Trina awoke in her cell, she stretched and yawned, and then took a drink from a cup of water sitting on a tray with some food just inside the cell door. The lights were on outside her door and some of it filtered through the semi-translucent walls too.

“Hey, Carson,” she said in a lazy voice, “what did you get for breakfast? Looks like I got oatmeal with raisins again, and you know I hate raisins.”

There was no reply. “Hey, aren’t you awake yet? Your oatmeal will get cold.” Aside of her own voice and movements, her sensitive hearing picked up nothing else besides the building’s air handlers. She moved to the wall and pressed her eyes up as close to it as her muzzle would allow and peered into the next cell. It was dark, but enough light came through its clear door to show her that there was no occupant, just an unmade bed to show that anyone had been in it.

She called out for her keepers, but neither Ethan nor Rod put in an appearance. This worried her. After all of these months, had Carson been executed for his crime in the middle of the night? Would that her fate as well?

***

When Dr. Kazama checked in with the Sori a week later, he peered in through the glassteel top of the cryo pod. Originally, it would have been frosted over from the inside, but freezing was not part of this renovation processes. He could see all of Carson Weathers inside. The furman’s crotch was hidden beneath the metal waste collection flange between his legs, and IV lines were attached to his body in several spots where his blood flowed out through a filtering system and was then returned to his veins. Snug fitting orange netting encompassed all but his head.

At first, nothing seemed out of place until the otter studied the bobcat closer. The dark fur seemed to have taken on a pinkish hue, but he discovered that it was not the color of the fur itself. Rather it was the man’s skin beneath a thinning coat of fur that was showing through.

He pulled back and looked over at Anano, the female Sori that had accompanied him inside the dome. She had been quietly grooming her fawn-colored hair with two hands and an odd-looking brush while the otter had made his requested examination.

“It’s working!” he exclaimed quietly.

Anano smiled, but shook her head in the human manner and spoke to the techwatch on her third wrist. “It is within acceptable, preliminary limits, Friend Kazama,” Arion translated for her, “but until there is a deeper transformation to reveal how well the renovation progresses throughout the volunteer subject’s body, success is still not certain.”

Kazama put a hand up to his heart and privately willed it to calm from his excitement. “Of course, you are right,” he said. “It has only been a few days. It is too soon to know for certain how well it’s going. Way too soon.”

“We will inform you if anything unexpected shows up in our readings, but you and Friend Jessica are welcome to look in on him anytime you wish. For now, there is nothing more we can do for the subject but monitor progress, so in the meantime, we continue the scientific work begun before the meteor fell.”

Kazama gave the alien a short bow out of habit. “I thank you,” he said, but then he directed his next words at the Synthetic Intelligence himself. “Arion, can you set up a real-time relay for all of Carson’s vitals and other physiological readings from the cryo pod to my tablet so that I can monitor him at leisure without disturbing the Sori’s work more than necessary?”

“Of course, Dr. Kazama. Feeding data to your tablet now.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

***

One thing the tablet data did not convey was Carson’s appearance, as there were none of Arion’s cameras within the Sori station, so Dr. Kazama still made periodic visits every few days. After a couple of weeks, the bobcat was starting to look ugly as a blend of bobcat and human features. So far, the process appeared to be working, and despite the augmented change rate, he seemed to be healthy in spite of his looks.

Then, after a month and a half asleep in his cryo bed, Carson looked more human than animal and the doctor was optimistic. With the exception of the higher placement of his human ears, which looked really odd residing near the crown of his head, the remaining elongated shape of his nose and the continued existence of claws and whiskers, Carson looked mostly human. Even his bobbed tail nub had shriveled up weeks ago.

The aliens were all still cautiously guarded with the results, however, since the transformation was taking longer with this species than it usually took with their own; it appeared that Terran DNA was far more complex than Sori.

***

“May I have everyone’s attention, please?”

The mayor had to repeat himself several times before the cafeteria located within the Central Authority building quieted enough for him to make an announcement. This was one of the rare nights when Chef Rocky and Victoria Barbicane had put together a buffet supper with enough variety to appeal to the appetites of the various species that everyone in the colony had gathered to take part in the meal. The room was crowded and there were many conversations filling the air amidst bites of bountiful food, but there was a virtual dividing line down the middle aisle with the carnivore and herbivore types clearly separated. The discussions finally died down as everyone looked to the front of the room where the cougar in charge stood up on a small dais.

“All right,” he said, rubbing his hands together as his thick tail swished back and forth behind him. “The reason we’re having this buffet tonight is a kind of celebration. As most of you are aware, Carson Weathers has been in holding since earlier this season for crimes committed against his wife. What only a few of you know, however, is that for the past seven weeks, Carson has been the subject of a Sori attempt to correct the DNA mutation that transformed him into a bobcat while in cryo on the way here.”

That announcement started another eruption of vocal exclamations throughout the room and it got so loud that the mayor had difficulty restoring order again. It took Arion to issue a shrill whistle from every tech device in the room to get everyone’s attention.

Ken lifted his hands high and waved them in the air. “Listen up!” he said loudly in the sudden quiet. “The Sori have conjectured that they might be able to reverse the transformation, much as they did with their own race years ago when they first ventured out of their own solar system, but since Sori and Terran DNA varies greatly, they were unsure the process would actually work on us. They’ve researched this in the months since they first arrived, and with Arion’s help on our unfamiliar physiology, they finally reached a point when they needed a live test subject to try it out on. Carson Weathers volunteered of his own free will in lieu of imprisonment.”

The cougar searched the crowd of herbivores as he spoke and finally spotted the doe goat who was married to the sleeping bobcat. She returned his gaze, but looked surprised. She had never been notified of her husband’s current status and she had not visited him once since he had been taken into custody.

“It was Carson’s wish to atone for his crime. He volunteered to be the first the transformation process was tried on. If it worked, he would be the first human on Bellerophon. If it didn’t work, then he felt that he would have paid the price for his actions.”

“Did it work?” someone from the herbivore crowd called out, but Ken did not readily recognize the voice.

“The process is taking longer than it usually does for the Sori, but his transformation appears to be progressing nicely. To reduce the effects of physical and psychological trauma, he has been kept asleep throughout the accelerated process, and while he currently looks like a mash-up blend of human and feline, he appears to be more human than furman at this time.”

At this news, conversations started to build, but the cougar was not finished. “Before you get too excited,” he said loudly, “you should know that the final success of this transformation is not certain! The risk of failure is still a possibility, so we won’t be celebrating just yet, but —” he said the last with a smile, “— all signs look good right now.”

There were a few good-natured cheers and then the room erupted into many conversations again. This time, the mayor sat down between Kate and Kazama. “That should boost morale for a little while,” he said over the din.

“Take a closer look around the room,” Kate replied. “It’s not all joy in Mudville, darling.”

“What do you mean?”

The lioness pointed out to different places around the room while Ken and Kazama followed her gestures. It slowly sunk in to both of them what they were seeing. There were joyous animated discussions all right, but there were some who looked to be in shock, while there were others who were openly crying.

“Why are they upset?” asked the river otter.

“Disbelief for some, relief for others,” Kate explained. “Since we woke up from cryo, we’ve been drilling it in to everyone’s heads that our mutations were permanent, to get used to these forms for the rest of their lives. There were a number who needed counseling, and I was one of them.”

Dr. Kazama looked surprised. “You?” he said in surprise. “More than just about anyone else in our group, I thought you handled the change as if it was just another aspect of the mission project.”

The lioness chuffed and shook her head with self-amusement. “Satoru, I have had to wear many masks in my lifetime. Acceptance of my situation was just another mask. Believe me when I say that I’ve had my share of tears and sessions with Dr. Fernando to work through my issues, some of them recent, just as much as any other.”

Ken nodded and crossed his arms lightly. “You’ve told me about some of them,” he said, “but I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“It has now been months that we’ve lived in these forms,” Kazama replied. “We should have all been getting used to being this way by now. I know I’m comfortable with who and what I am, although I still have dreams of who I used to be.”

“There were rumors of hope to fix us when the Sori voidship arrived, but after so much time without news since then, the rumors died off on their own.” The lioness continued, “This new announcement has stirred up the pot again. There are others who actually like and enjoy what they’ve become and will be resistant to the notion of changing back if they have that choice.”

“Why wouldn’t they want to change back?” Ken prompted.

“Think about it. For some, especially the carnivorous predator types, their new bodies are stronger, healthier and more robust, even if they are the equivalent of being sterile. Why would they want to become weaker human beings again, especially if they’d had some debilitating health issues before or were often the subject of bullying by others stronger than them.”

Just then, Yvonne Weathers approached their table. She was accompanied by several other herbivore types.

“Your Honor, sir,” said the doe, “we would like to be first on the list to be changed back! If you’re making a roster, please include us!”

Ken Robeson uncrossed his arms and leaned forward onto the table toward them. “I’m sorry, Yvonne, but we need to wait and see if your husband’s transformation is stable and safe before we let anyone start lining up to go through it themselves.”

“But you said —”

“What I said is that it’s looking good. That does not mean that the ‘finished product’, so to speak, will be what it’s supposed to be. This is an unknown realm of science for us, and the Sori have never met our kind before – human or furman. There could still be dangers or unexpected results, so until we can sit down with a fully restored Carson and give him a thorough physical and psychological examination, we aren’t going to call it done until it’s rightfully done.”

“What kind of danger could it be?” asked a male deer from the small group. Ken recognized him as one of the construction workers who had helped build the very building they were sitting in.

“While the physical transformation looks like it is progressing well,” Dr. Kazama answered, “Carson has been kept asleep in a cryo-like state through the accelerated changes, so we have been unable to check in on his mental health. Will he still be Carson Weathers when he is awakened, or instead will he have the mind and instincts of a bobcat in human form? That could be just as disastrous as what we’ve endured already. We just don’t know at this stage.”

“Why did you bother telling anyone until it was done?” Yvonne retorted crossly. “You’ve given us hope and now you want to dash that to pieces!”

“My dear,” Ken said with compassion, “Hope is exactly what I wanted to give everyone. Hope is never certain in any case, but it can help uplift spirits. That is what I wished for you all. Until we know for sure, hope is all we can do, but we won’t get ahead of ourselves by claiming the process is perfected until it has finished.”

The goat seemed to deflate and she looked around at the others who had joined her. Finally she looked back at the cougar and nodded. “Okay, we can understand this,” she said quietly, “but when — if — the process works to revert my husband back to his original form, we still wish to be first to volunteer to go through it too.”

Ken nodded. “Send me your names to my techwatch and I will create a first come-first served listing of volunteers. I will just keep it on file for now until such time as it may be needed.”

“That’s all we ask, Your Honor. Thank you.”

The herbivores drifted away from the table and it was barely a moment later when the mayor’s techwatch began to ping with their message alerts.

***

Inside one of the secondary Sori domes, a solitary dinosauria form paced around the room, checking readings from medical sensors and indicators on the panels of the Terran cryo pod. There were still changes taking place within the volunteer’s body, and while things had gone well, something did not smell right. Human physiology was still foreign to him, but Rialsis felt as if there might be a chemical imbalance producing the subtle scent. This was not something that occurred in Sori-based renovations, so it was more of a ‘gut feeling’ than any scientific fact, but the odor he sensed concerned him.

While he was musing over this discovery, warning alarms rang out and startled him from his thoughts. There appeared to be an electrical malfunction to the man’s heart and it started beating wildly irregular in arrhythmias. The patient’s body shuddered, and although the man was fully sedated, a brief painful moan escaped his lips before his heart stopped beating altogether.

Despite the differences in their physical forms, Rialsis knew that a heart that had ceased beating prevented blood flow to the organs and could be fatal without immediate treatment. Unfortunately, as unfamiliar as he was with human physiology, he did not know how to resuscitate him properly, so the Sori rushed to find the techwatch he had removed prior to his previous sleep period.

When he finally found it in another room of the station, he activated the alert as he had been shown and Arion answered immediately.

“Friend Rialsis, how may I help you,” the SI responded in the Sori’s primary language.

“Subject’s heart has stopped. What do I do?”

“Accessing cryo pod sensors.” Several buzzing thumps issued from the cryo pod and the form within jolted several times; the alarm continued to sound. There was a brief pause before the voice spoke again and then the klaxon promptly ceased. The quiet persisted for a couple of minutes before the SI spoke again.

“I am sorry, Friend Rialsis. I was unable to resuscitate him. Carson Weathers has perished.”

The Sori peered down in through the top of the pod and studied the human form within. He was quiet for a long moment, but then activated several controls to back up the data leading up to the terminal event.

“I regret the loss,” he said matter-of-factly, “but not surprised. Humankind is so different from Sorikind that there was always the risk of failure. We will research the data to determine the cause and with your permission, perform autopsy.”

Arion knew that he had total autonomy with this project, so he did not hesitate in giving the alien the permission he needed to do what was necessary. Now it would be up to him to inform the mayor and his command staff of the abrupt end to the experimental procedure.

Chapter Thirty

Furs in the Dark

“Mr. Robeson, Sir.”

The mayor looked up from his tablet, where he had been poring over the production reports laying additional water lines throughout the proposed city. He was actually glad for the interruption of such a dry report that he did not even mind the ship intelligence’s dig at his title.

“Yes, Arion, what have you got?”

“There is unrest within the ranks and I thought you should be aware.”

“Explain, please.”

“Since your announcement two days ago of the renovation project ending with Mr. Weathers’ demise, I have recorded thirty-two conversations within earshot of tech devices focusing on this failure. There are disgruntled personnel who have never trusted the aliens and they are now actively blaming them for Mr. Weathers’ death.”

“Blaming them, in spite of foreknowledge that the procedure was risky and was not a guaranteed success?”

“Apparently so.”

“Do you expect trouble from the conversations you’ve listened in on?”

“There have been several remarks made concerning the Sori ancestry and the unknown motives of aliens.”

“There’s no crime in having opinions, Arion. I wonder how their remarks would run if everyone knew you were listening in on all conversations. We all value our privacy, you know.”

“Fully understood, but all personnel were briefed when they originally signed for their tech that if privacy was preferred, there is a mute function on all of the devices that would disable the microphones. I do not have the capability to circumnavigate this specific function, which was a hard directive by my designers. The mute feature would have to be manually toggled on or off for communication with me. So long as the microphones are active, I am listening in. All personnel have the choice to keep their conversations private if they wish.”

Ken frowned. “I’m sure most have forgotten that they have that choice and leave them on at all times. I know I do in the case of emergency.”

“That is likely the case, and you are free to remind our personnel of this feature. If you do not wish to know of any dissention within the ranks of your people, you need only give me a directive of your own not to tell you.”

“Noted, my friend.” The cougar sat back in his seat and looked around the room. His eyes went to the large smart screen mounted to a wall and it was currently displaying a scene from outside in the crater. He was glad to have that feature, but he had often wished for a real window to the outside for the fresh air and sunlight it could provide. Not having the window, however, was a safety feature in case there was ever a bout of harsh winds or weather that could break glass. His thoughts returning to the conversation, he reflected on what he had just been told and he resolved to make sure his devices would be placed on mute whenever he and Kate had private time together.

“Have any of these conversations discussed causing actual harm to the Sori?” he asked after a quiet moment.

“None directly, sir.”

“Perhaps not, but I think we may need to provide some security for our alien friends. Would you have Ethan and Rod come see me, please?”

“Ethan is currently at the south gate to investigate a herd of Belle Stars that appear to have been attracted to our city lights, but he has been contacted and should be here in about twenty minutes.”

“What about Rod?”

“I’m here,” said a voice from the hallway. The snow leopard stepped through the partially closed door. “I was visiting with Trina when Arion said you needed to see me.”

“Have a seat. How is she doing?”

“Still working through her emotions on Carson’s death,” Rod answered. “She knows that when the Sori are ready to try again, she’s next and is scared that she will wind up the same as him.”

“We have given her a choice,” Ken reminded him. “When the time comes, we can ask for another volunteer if she refuses to do it.”

“I can’t think of anyone who might take you up on the offer after what happened to him.”

“Actually, there are three others who have come to me in private to volunteer.”

Rod widened his eyes at this. “Really?”

“Yeah, these are some who have really had a tough time with their transformations, even after six months in our new forms, and they would prefer to risk a possible death to get better, rather than to go on as they are.”

“Wow, that’s harsh. Let me guess, they’re all herbs.”

“Herbs?”

“Herbivores.”

“One is, the other two are predators who have worked hard to keep from attacking any of the… herbs. They’ve voluntarily kept themselves away from situations where they have to be in close proximity to the temptation just to keep the peace.”

“Oh, okay. So, what’s on your mind?”

“I had hoped to have Ethan here to discuss it with you two together, but as his deputy, you can fill him in on any details later.”

“Trouble brewing?”

“Let’s just say that the potential for trouble may be an issue. We’ve heard grumblings about the Sori over Carson’s death. It seems that some are blaming them for sacrificing him like a monkey or guinea pig in a science experiment, and while there have been no direct threats, I would like to set up a rotation of guards armed with medical mercy darts at the aliens’ research station.”

The leopard nodded, absently rubbing a finger across the whiskers on one side of his muzzle. “We’ll need to make sure that who we pick as guards aren’t any of those who are likely to use the position for their own agendas.”

“Agreed. Can you work on that?”

The spotted feline stood up. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Rod…” Ken said with a steady gaze at the leopard, “I have to ask — what are your feelings about all this?”

The deputy was quiet for a couple of heartbeats. “Honestly, I can’t blame anyone for Carson’s death. He knew it was uncertain before he volunteered, and while I’m sure he felt it was his duty to atone for what he tried to do to Yvonne, he was truly warned that it might not work. He said his goodbyes before he went under, but your alien friends didn’t kill him. It was an untried method to do what we all thought was impossible to begin with.”

Ken nodded. “Thanks, I had to be sure.”

The former First Officer of Arion-1 gifted him with a wide grin. “You can count on me, Captain. We’ll make sure no one tries to disturb the Sori. If we have any chance of making this work, they’ll need uninterrupted research time to figure it out.”

“Zaizen once told me that she was aware there were Furs who did not trust her simply because she was alien to them, and I’m sure she reported that to the team replacing her here. They may not understand this distrust, but for their own safety I will have Arion ask them to refrain from visiting the city for the time being. They can ask for any of us to come out to them with supplies they may need.”

“Right-o, Cap’n. I’ll tell Ethan what you want to do, but in the meantime, I’ll start working up a roster.”

“Thanks, Rod.”

***

Although there were now light poles lining a few streets of Tellus Mater, there were not so many to illuminate the town out to the perimeter fences. Even when full, the two small moons did not reflect much light either, but on nights when they were not visible at all, or the sky was overcast as it was this time, the darkness was so complete that it could almost be felt.

Within that Stygian darkness, four indistinct shadows crept quietly out away from the fences to stay out of reach of the sensors they knew were there. An hour earlier, they had snuck out through the South Gate and took their time down on all fours making their way around toward the crater lake.

Their purpose was anything but honorable, and while only one of them had actually been a close associate of the bobcat, they all believed that he had died under some nefarious experiment that was conveniently contrived to help all the poor furmen. While none of them had been able to get into the armory to sneak out firearms, each of them possessed items that could be used as weapons to bludgeon the unsuspecting aliens, accompanied by fire-starters to burn their station to the ground.

They spoke to one another only in whispers and only when necessary as they made their way under the cover of darkness, but there were green glowing lamps outside of the Sori domes that helped them pinpoint their destination. What they could not see, however, were the proximity sensors freshly placed around the domes, and as they got closer to the mark, a series of sharply brilliant LED lamps lit up the very spot where the four creepers were momentarily blinded.

Hidden guards swarmed out of the darkness toward them, and before the creepers could get reoriented and escape, each of them were shot with a compressed gas-propelled mercy round. These tiny medical darts were just powerful enough to penetrate a furman’s pelt and break the skin beneath to administer a swift-acting drug, and it dropped them in their tracks without anyone having to engage claws or fangs. The four sleeping forms would drowse for a couple of hours and wake up later in lock-up with little more than a headache.

The snoozing bodies were loaded onto a flatbed truck and Ethan trundled off through the gate back to town with them while the other guards got back into position. During the drive, the brown bear gave Arion details of the incident to be relayed to the mayor whenever he woke for the next day.

With the rising of the sun, Ken made a proclamation to all colonists that the aliens’ research station was now off limits to all but those authorized. He provided only a brief explanation of the night’s event and gave notice that deadly force was approved to be used against anyone else who tried to harm the Sori.

He only let them know that those who were captured were subdued, but he did not mention that only mercy darts had been used, nor did he release their names. If anyone else contemplated a raid on the research station, he wanted them to believe they could be shot for their actions. This was serious business.

***

When the colony command team faced the creepers from the night before, none of the captive predators looked repentant of their actions, only indignant that they had been caught. There were three males and one female locked up in the two unoccupied jail cells, and secured upon the right leg of each prisoner was an ankle monitor that Arion had printed with the fabricators during the night. Trina Barron sat quietly upon the bunk in her own cell, her knees drawn up to her chin and her long tail wrapped around her ankles as she waited for the drama to unfold.

“We’re going to hold you here for a few days so you can reflect upon your actions,” Ethan informed the ocelot’s new cellmates, “and then you will be placed under my supervision for hard labor in the city — duration to be determined.” He gave them an ursine sneer and added, “What I plan for you will be rather disagreeable, so I hope those enhanced noses of yours aren’t too sensitive to foul odors.”

“Those aliens killed Weathers!” ranted a badger in the second cell. “They deserve to be paid back!”

“That’s not a choice you get to make,” Ken said in a calm response. “Would you have preferred someone else had given Mr. Weathers payback for what he did to his wife? Carson knew the risk of what he volunteered to do, and while it did not work as well as we’d hoped, what he did was an attempt to help us all change back to our original human forms.”

“He was a better person than any of you are,” Sean Barringer interjected at the prisoners. “The Sori had no obligation to help the poor aliens they found on this world, but since their own race had gone through the same thing years ago, they offered to do what they could for us.”

“If you had killed them,” Kate added, “you would have doomed all of humanity to mutate into Furs whenever anyone left our solar system for other stars, and we still don’t know if any of us can have children! The Sori method was never assured to work on the first try, and it’s unfortunate we lost someone, but at least our alien friends are trying to help us avoid our future fate. Their genetic engineering science is advanced far beyond what we know, so it’s to our advantage to utilize their knowledge.”

“All right, all right!” shouted the African wild dog in the third cell. She stepped close to the glassteel door and slammed her padded palm against its surface. “Spare us the lecture! You’ve said it all before!”

“Yes, but it appears that none of you actually listened to what we said,” Rod supplied in a mocking tone. “In one furry ear and out the other, completely bypassing the walnut-sized brains you all have.”

“You all say that Carson volunteered,” said one of the other prisoners. The hyena rolled his shoulders and sat down on the bunk. “He was my friend and our children were growing up together, but in spite of waking up as a bobcat, being a hero was not something he would do. He had to have been coerced into doing it!”

Ethan drew himself up to his full height to give Jeff Colton an earful, but Ken held up a hand to stop the bear. “Carson Weathers was responsible enough to know that he was the logical choice and he asked me to let him be the first test, before anyone would have the notion to try to talk him into it,” he said quietly.

“I don’t believe you,” Colton retorted. “I think your alien friends needed someone to experiment on and since you’re so chummy with them, you gave them a convenient prisoner. I don’t think Carson was ever meant to turn human again.”

The mayor turned to the white rabbit standing beside him. “Did you have the cryo pod delivered here from the research station as I asked?”

“Yeah, it’s in the store room down the hall.”

“Could you and Rod wheel it in here, please?”

“Sure.”

While they waited for the furmen to return, Ken put his hands behind his back, keeping his tail quiet. “I would like everyone to step up close to your doors,” he said. “I want you all to see this.”

The rabbit and leopard pushed one of the familiar pods in through the door, and it barely fit the standard-sized opening. Ken gestured where he wanted it and they let it stop in front of the first cell. Kate touched a control and the lid pivoted upward with a brief puff of chilled air.

“Take a look inside,” the cougar said to the ocelot. Trina peered through her door and down in the pod. Inside was a mostly-human male. The netting, tubes and flange had all been removed, and Carson Weathers lay nude upon the soft bottom cushion with only a wash cloth strategically placed over his genitals. The woman gasped and pulled her hands up to her face. This was not the bobcat who had once occupied the cell next to her, but she recognized his human face as the man she had briefly met when Arion-1 was still in orbit over the Earth. His features still had a hint of the feline he had been, but here was proof that he had undergone some kind of transformation back into his original form. No makeup job could do this.

Ken motioned to Rod and the snow leopard then wheeled the pod in front of the next cell. The pair in that chamber stared down at Carson, their expressions showing a mixture of shock and awe at the changes the man had gone through. With another gesture, the pod was rolled over in front of the last cell. The inhabitants stared down mutely at the prone figure, and moisture formed beneath the woman’s eyes.

No one said a word, so Ken turned back to Rod and Sean. “Please make sure Mr. Weathers is returned safely to the Sori,” he said quietly. “They are still trying to determine what went wrong, but I understand they are making progress.” He looked back at the cell doors and added, “Carson’s sacrifice was not in vain, but if a resolution can be found, his name will be revered here and back on Earth once the solution can be transmitted to them.”

The cryo pod was resealed and then rolled toward the door, but before it passed out of view, Trina spoke up with tears in her eyes as well.

“Take me next,” she said loud enough for those in the other cells could hear. “I volunteer. No pressure. No coercion.”

***

Dr. Kazama walked quietly into the cell room of the Central Authority building. He wore just a pair of shorts beneath a modified lab coat that fit his diminutive stature and he had his hands in the pockets of the coat. He nodded to Angelo and Piale Bonavita, the only other people in the room seated at a small folding table, where they looked up from the tablet novel they were taking turns reading aloud.

He walked to the first cell, the only one currently in use. It had been two weeks since anyone had occupied the others. Sitting on the floor just inside the door was the ocelot, who had been quietly listening to her friends read to her.

“Hello Trina. Hello Angelo, Piale.” All three returned his greeting. The lynx closed the cover of his tablet and looked at the doctor curiously, but the ocelot in the cell stood up and faced him.

“How are you doing?” the otter asked. “I heard you wanted to see me.”

“I… I’m fine,” she said in a quiet voice, “but I’m a nervous wreck, just waiting for my turn.”

“That’s understandable, but wouldn’t you rather talk with Dr. Fernando instead?”

She glanced at her friends and then back to the physician. “I have done that already,” she confessed, “but you’re the only one who can help me now.”

“Oh? What can I do if you are physically ‘fine’, as you say?”

The feline woman hesitated and swallowed hard. “None of us know how long it will be before the Sori are ready for me,” she said, “but the anxiety and stress of waiting is likely to kill me before I can have the chance to die from the procedure.”

“I don’t think that would happen, but how can I help?”

She put both hands up to the transparent door and looked at him firmly. “I want to be put to sleep,” she said. The otter’s eyes widened, Angelo gasped and Piale let out a small cry, but Trina shook her head with a smirk. “No, I don’t mean put me down like a beloved pet,” she explained, “but I want you to sedate me now and keep me sleeping up to whenever it’s my turn.”

“You want to go into a cryo pod for however many weeks or months it takes for them to find a solution?” Angelo asked, suddenly standing beside the doctor.

“You don’t want to do that!” Piale added. “It could take years!”

“Yes, I know,” Trina answered, “but in cryo I’ve slept for years before and never knew the passing of time. I’m tired of looking at the walls of my cell with only a brief escorted trip outside to see the sky once a week. If I can’t be trusted out in the population anymore, why not just knock me out until I’m needed?”

Kazama studied her for a long moment before he raised his techwatch. “Arion,” he said, “would you please arrange for one of the pilots to boost up to you in orbit to transport Trina Barron’s cryo pod down to the surface. Have him bring it to me here at Central Authority. There’s no need to give her to the Sori until they are ready for her.”

“Acknowledged, Doctor. Mr. Kittinger has been informed and he says he will prep Secretariat for launch within the hour. I will have my waldo retrieve Ms. Barron’s pod from storage and have it waiting for him when he docks.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

“You’re welcome, Doctor.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Trina said with emotion. “I think it’s for the best.”

Angelo pressed himself up to the transparent door. “Trina! You know that if you’re put into induced sleep before you’re taken to the Sori, you may never wake up again - like poor Carson!”

She had grown fond of the lynx in the months since he had become single again, and had even formed a friendship with his daughter, Piale. She gave him a look of sadness, but did not speak.

The arctic fox moved in close beside her father, distress over her features. “Don’t…” she pleaded. “I… I want you to be my new Mom!” At those words, Trina choked back a sob.

“When it comes time for me to go,” she murmured after wiping her eyes, “I don’t want to see the aliens. I have nothing against them, but if I see them again, I’m likely to lose my resolve to do this.”

She looked first at Angelo, and then to Piale. “If this actually works, then I would be happy to be your new Mom. Right, Angelo?”

The lynx nodded vigorously at the reversed proposal. “I accept!” he said with a grin.

Dr. Kazama quietly left the room to give them privacy, and it was doubtful any of the others had seen him depart. The decision made, he had some preparations to coordinate with Jessica, as well as inform the mayor of this new development.

***

Three months after Carson’s death, the descendants of Earth had been on Bellerophon for three-quarters of their first year, and while seasons changed for other parts of the planet, the colony crater continued to enjoy tropical weather owing to its near-equatorial location.

The day finally came when the Sori were ready to try again. In a quiet conversation with Dr. Kazama, who had Arion relay the discussion to the command team in real time, the aliens reported that they believed they were able to isolate the issue and correct it for the renovation process.

Without making a public announcement, the mayor authorized them to try again with Trina Barron. This time, Dr. Kazama placed Jessica in charge of his medical practice for the colony and moved into a tent constructed for him near the Sori research station. While none of them had any evidence that his presence could have saved Carson when he had gone into cardiac arrest, the doctor was adamant about staying close to Trina as an additional safety margin. As before, they all knew it could take weeks before anything could be called a success or failure, but the continual rotation of guards could bring the otter food and any necessary supplies on a daily basis.

Peacefully asleep in her cryo pod, Trina was delivered to the Sori and they accepted responsibility for her with the dignity she deserved.

***

It was close to six weeks of glacial transformation before Trina successfully passed through all stages of her renovation without a repeat of Carson’s incident. The Sori could detect no further changing activity at the genetic level, but had to rely on Dr. Kazama’s judgement to make sure she looked okay, since none of the aliens had ever seen a human outside of photographs that Arion had supplied. No longer a Fur, her new form definitely appeared strange to them.

There was only so much that the otter could tell with her inside the cryo pod and so he made the decision to awaken her for a full physical examination. Her vitals all looked good and healthy, but it was time to bring her out of a prolonged induced coma and he silently hoped she would wake up. He and Jessica disconnected her from the pod’s electrical and IV systems and allowed her to rouse naturally on her own.

It took an additional three hours for her body to flush the sedatives out of her system, and it was only then when her vitals indicated that she was regaining consciousness. The doctor and his nurse stayed out of her field of vision and allowed her to awaken to a dimly-lit room, much as they had all done when they had been decanted on the ship.

Trina swallowed and licked her lips, and her breathing remained regular as if she had only emerged from a night’s sleep. The first thing she did was reach for an insulated tumbler of water that she normally kept at her bedside, but there was nothing there; no tumbler and no night stand, only the side of her cryo pod. She gave a small sigh of disappointment, as if she realized that she had forgotten to fill her water the night before. She opened her eyes to stare up at the ceiling and peered up at it for several long moments before she rubbed a hand across her face.

“Arion, what time is it?” she asked drowsily.

“The time is now 10:34 am, Ms. Barron.”

“It must be overcast outside. It’s still dark in here.” She heard the shuffle of nearby feet and she swallowed. “Is someone there?” she asked in a raspy voice.

“It’s just me and the doctor,” Jessica said from somewhere in the darkness. “How do you feel?”

Trina took a moment to think about that and absently scratched at an itch on an arm. “Just a little groggy. Are we there yet?”

“Where?” Jessica asked softly.

“Bellerophon. Did we make it okay?”

“She doesn’t remember?” said another voice in a quiet whisper.

“I bet she does,” Jessica countered. “She’s just disoriented.”

Trina listened to the exchange and it started to come back to her. “I remember now. How… long have we been on Belle?”

“Just a little over nine months.”

“Nine months… Okay, how long have I been asleep?”

“About eleven weeks, dear,” Kazama’s voice answered. “Are you ready to get up now?”

“Get up? ” she whined. “I didn’t want to be awake when the Sori took me.”

“No, dear, the Sori are finished with you. It’s time to get up and greet a new day.”

“Finished? I don’t understand, but yes, I think I can get up now.”

“Jessica, if you will do the honors.”

“Of course. Trina, I need to disconnect the elimination flange. You know the drill.” The woman cleared her throat and spread her legs wide without further comment. The red panda moved into her view to work, so Trina held up a hand in front of her face — her human hand.

“Did… did it work?” she gasped, flexing her fingers.

Jessica took the flange away to be cleaned and Dr. Kazama’s otter face looked down at her with a smile. “All indications show that you are no longer an ocelot, my dear. Our Sori friends have declared your renovation complete.”

The human woman put both hands to her face and then cried. The physician allowed her to have a few minutes and even provided a box of tissues imported from Earth. When she finally dried her face and composed herself, she looked up at him with a wide grin.

“I didn’t expect to wake up again,” she told the doctor. “Please tell me I’m not dreaming!”

The otter laughed and his whiskers quivered. “There is no dreaming in cryo, my dear. You are quite awake, and from what I can see right now, you are a stunning looking human.”

It suddenly dawned on the woman that what he could see, was her naked body. No longer covered in fur, she suddenly dropped a hand to her crotch and rested the other arm across her chest. Kazama laughed aloud and offered her a hand.

“No worries, I’m a doctor,” he told her. “Let’s get you up and then we need to give you a full examination.”

“I don’t think my furman clothes are going to fit me anymore,” she said as she swallowed her dignity and took his hand. He helped her sit up, and then she crawled out of the pod to stand unsteadily beside it.

Jessica returned and moved to the end of the cryo unit. She opened a storage drawer and picked up the folded clothing that Trina had placed there over three-quarters of a century earlier. She set it on the edge of the pod beside her and patted it lightly.

“You can put these on in a moment, but as the doctor said, we need to give you a comprehensive physical first. For that, you need to remain unclothed.”

Trina flushed red and could feel it over more than just her face and neck. She chuckled and then looked around the room as Rialsis raised the lighting in the chamber. She looked at the alien and blinked in the brighter light; she looked around the room to see if there was anyone else gawking at her that she hadn’t seen right off, but there were no others.

Remembering the alien’s greeting, she raised each of her hands toward him in turn, splaying out her fingers. The male returned her action and then gave her a human-style nod. “Friend Trina,” he said through Arion’s translation, “it is good to see you renovated and healthy, even if I do not recognize your new features.”

She smiled at him, but then turned to Jessica. “Before you give me the exam, can I see myself in a mirror?”

“The Sori do not have mirrors,” Kazama told her, “but I have been living in a tent nearby and had the foresight to bring a full-length mirror for my own vanity.” He gestured to the item leaning up against a wall and Trina suddenly dropped forward to the floor and hit flat on her face. Jessica and Kazama rushed her to side and she looked up at them in bewilderment, rubbing her wrists where she had fallen on them.

“Careful, my dear,” Kazama chided as they helped her upright. “You’ll need to get used to walking with plantigrade feet again.”

“No, that wasn’t it,” she said with an embarrassed smirk. “I tried to drop to all fours to walk over to the mirror.”

Jessica laughed. “You don’t have ‘all fours’ anymore!”

Trina smiled and rubbed her nose that hit the floor. “Exactly!”

Standing upright again, she took a step forward and almost stumbled again, but her body compensated and she quickly remembered how to walk on human feet again.  Her steps were tentative at first, especially without a tail to provide counterbalance, but it came back to her – like ‘riding a bike’.

She made it over to the mirror without falling onto her face again, and once she was in front of her reflection, she stood with her feet sturdy and her hands on her hips. It was such an odd feeling to be naked again, and to see that person staring back at her. Despite the weeks asleep, she had good muscle tone, though she would need to work on her tan again. There were no blemishes upon her skin, not a single freckle, and even her ginger hair seemed to have good body, although it was unkempt and in need of a good shampoo and conditioner. It had not yet grown out as long as she had normally worn it, but she was not choosy. She was just glad to have it again and would let it fill out in its own time.

She leaned in close to study her face and she reached up to brush her fingers across her mouth and nose, amazed that she no longer had a muzzle. She did the same with her ears, which were no longer fuzzy and located on the sides of her head instead of up near the crown of her skull. She also noticed that her bust size had returned to its former glory and was pleased with that. She had never been top-heavy, but had always been pleased with how full and firm she was.

It was while she was looking at her abdomen when she noticed something. She partially turned back toward the doctor. “I’m missing the scar from my appendectomy.”

Kazama looked pleased. “I had wondered about that, actually,” he said. “What the Sori did was basically a reset back to your original DNA code. You probably won’t have any scars you may have once had, and if my hypothesis is correct, you probably even have a healthy appendix inside you now.”

Trina made a wow face and then smiled at Jessica. “Okay, I think I’m ready for that physical now,” she said, spreading her arms to let them see her in all her naked splendor. “I’m just as curious as you all are about the health of my new-old body.”

***

Once again, all personnel of the Tellus Mater population had been called for a mandatory morning staff meeting in the Central Authority cafeteria. Those who were nocturnal were roused by Arion’s alarms, and even the guards at the Sori research station was called in to attend. The aliens would lock themselves inside their domes until they returned, but were assured that the necessity of this contingency would likely be over soon.

Once Rocky and Victoria had the segregated crowds all fed and satisfied, Ken stepped up onto the raised dais at one end of the room and called for everyone’s attention. Discussions quieted down within a couple of moments, but soon all eyes were upon him. There were only those few of the command team that knew what he was going to announce, but everyone else waited in quiet curiosity.

“It’s good to see everyone here all together again,” the cougar said pleasantly, “and I hope you all had a good meal. I plan to have these full-on staff meetings once a quarter. It gives everyone a break from the tasks you’re all assigned and also gives you all a chance to meet and mingle if you wish, since some jobs don’t allow you to get away often enough to do so.”

“That’s because you’re a taskmaster!” someone called out jovially from the back. Ken grinned and nodded.

“Yes, I know I can be, but that’s just because you’re all good, hard workers. I appreciate that, and when Arion-2 arrives in a little over four years from now, they will appreciate it too!” He pulled a tablet from the wide pocket of his shorts and tapped the screen.

“First off, a little business, and then I have something special to share.” He spent several moments going over production reports on their progress, and a new meal plan that Rocky had devised that included a few new fruit and vegetables from the nearby rainforests that had proven edible and nutritious for Terran metabolisms. Finally, he put away his tablet and faced the expectant crowd.

“It’s been months since we lost a good member of our colony, Carson Weathers,” he began. The change in attitude of the room was so quick that the mayor could practically taste it turn sour on the air, so he knew he needed to progress quickly. “What happened was unfortunate, but the story did not stop with him. Despite the animosity and blame some of you placed on our alien friends, the Sori continued working on the dilemma and made breakthroughs in their research.”

He stopped and gestured toward Kate, who stood at the exit of the room, and in turn she made a motion to someone out in the hallway. “There is someone here who would like to take up this narrative and tell you the rest of the story.”

All eyes were on a hooded, cloaked figure who followed the African lioness around the perimeter of the room up to the dais. A dark red robe covered the person from head to toe, and the person’s face was completely hidden beneath the hood.

Ken stepped down off the platform and the mysterious figure took his place. Then without a prolonged preamble, the person pulled back the hood and Trina Barron grinned triumphantly out at the stunned audience. She then untied the belt around her middle and let the robe drop to her feet.

“I would like to report that the Sori have been successful!” she said in a loud voice, raising her hands in the air. “I’m me again!”

The red-haired, human woman that stood before them was dressed in a white tee shirt, tan short-shorts and with sneakers on her feet; she even wore dangly metal bracelets on each wrist. Not everyone in the colony had known her personally, but for those who did, she looked just as she had over seventy-six years ago before they had left the Earth. This was not the anthropomorphized ocelot hybrid that had come out of cryo sleep with them.

There was stunned silence for a moment before shouts of astonishment filled the air. There was also a scattering of applause, as well as sobs of relief and surprise among the crowd.

“If I could still wolf-whistle, I’d do it for you now!” someone called out from the back. “You look great!”

A surge of Furs suddenly jumped up to rush the stage, but Ethan and Rod had anticipated this and stood in front of the woman waving their hands in the air.

“Back to your seats!” Ethan bellowed to the crowds. He and Rod had to repeat themselves several times, but it was up to Arion to issue his shrill alarm through all techwatches in the room to get everyone calmed again.

Trina plugged her hands into her pockets and laughed in genuine mirth. “My friends, the Sori were serious with their research and their resolve to help us,” she told them all. “They’ve been exploring space much longer than we have, and they had the same mutating issues when they left their own solar system. They spent many years trying to undo the transformations and were finally able to do just that. They also devised a way to shield their future ships from the changing rays so they could continue their exploration among the stars without more mutations.”

“If they knew how to reverse the changes,” someone said loudly in the sudden quiet, “then what happened to Carson Weathers?”

Trina looked sad for a moment, but then answered with what she knew. “The Sori had never met a human – or a furman – before we discovered Zaizen here on Belle. The DNA of humans is more complex than that of the Sori, and there was no guarantee their methods would ever work on us. Carson was hopeful that he would wake up with his original body just as I have, and he knew the risks before he volunteered, but it took his loss for the Sori to find the right pathway to reversing the transformation. It was a tragedy, but it was not in vain. I am proof of that. It can be done!”

“So when can the rest of us have it?” someone asked with emotion. “When can we change back?”

Trina turned back to the mayor and stepped down from the dais so he could field these inevitable questions.

“I am glad to see everyone so optimistic about Ms. Barron’s change. For the moment, we will continue to monitor her physical well-being to make sure she continues to be healthy, but there is no way that everyone can be transformed back all at once. It took her six weeks to go through the process, but we will be working on a resolution to make sure everyone gets the chance once it’s been announced. I have already started a roster for those who have come to me over the past weeks, and I can start adding more names once we’re sure the process holds.”

Dr. Kate took his place on the dais and read from her tablet. “At the most, we could start the process on ten at a time here in this building where we have more room instead of the Sori dome, but no more than that due to limited resources. With each renovation period at six weeks, in order to put everyone through the process, it would take approximately fourteen months until we’re all human again.”

“Fourteen months!”

Ken stepped up on the platform and held up a hand. “Yes, and that is a best case scenario, folks. This means that when we are sure enough about Trina’s renovation that we can start putting you through it, some of you will have to wait your turn and continue your routines. You’ve been a bunch of animals for six months, you can go another six to fourteen to have your humanity back. To be fair, the command team has agreed to wait until last to go through it ourselves, but you must all be patient!”

The mayor went on to field more questions that were similar in context, but Trina had already heard the command team discuss all of this. She motioned to Kate to come down off the dais and quietly asked if they could leave. The two of them slipped out through the kitchen while Ken retained the focus of the discussion.

Once they were out the back of the building, Kate turned to Trina. “We still don’t have enough houses or apartments constructed for everyone, but I’m sure we can find one if you would rather live there than back in the tent city. You’re a celebrity now.”

Trina looked off across the beginnings of the town and shrugged her shoulders. “I rather thought I would be going back to my jail cell,” she replied quietly. “After all, I’m still guilty of my crime.”

Before Kate could say anything more, Arion spoke from her techwatch. “Please forgive the interruption, Dr. Kate, but Dominic Silvanus is requesting to meet with Ms. Barron alone.”

Trina looked suddenly afraid. “He’s the one I hurt!” she hissed. “Now that I no longer have the defenses of a big cat, he might want to repay the favor!”

“We can deny him access to you,” Kate offered. “Arion, please send Ethan out here. Trina needs a bodyguard.”

“He is on his way.”

A moment later, the bear stepped out the back door from the galley kitchen. He spied the women and approached them cautiously. “What’s up?” he asked. “Arion only said you needed me right away.”

“Dominic wants to meet with Trina, but she’s afraid he might want payback for hurting him. She doesn’t have claws anymore and needs a bodyguard until we can determine his intent.”

“Got it,” said the sheriff. He looked at the human woman and gave her a warm smile. “It’s sure good to see you looking so well,” he said.

“Back to the jail?” Trina asked.

The bear looked back and forth between she and the lioness. “I don’t think that was ever anything we discussed while you were asleep,” he admitted. To Kate he asked, “You’re the deputy mayor. What do you want to do with her?”

“I don’t think she’s a threat to attack anyone else,” Kate answered. “As far as I’m concerned, she paid the debt for her crime by undergoing such a dangerous procedure and coming out the other side alive and well. Dominic may not feel that way, however.”

“I have a suggestion,” Trina interjected. “Put me back in my jail cell for now. If Dom wants to talk to me, it can be through a glassteel wall. You can decide what to do with me later.”

***

Dominic Silvanus was escorted by Dean Ruston through the Central Authority corridors back to the holding cells. When they turned the corner into a side hallway, the Siberian Husky stopped and simply gestured that the tail-less raccoon should continue on ahead without him.

When Dominic approached the door to the cell chamber, he looked up at the imposing bulk of Ethan Edwards standing before it. In a relaxed stance beside the sheriff was his deputy, Rod Vincent. The brown bear, however, had his feet planted apart, his arms crossed and his visage stern.

“Yes?” Ethan asked. He already knew why the biologist was there, but he did not intend to make it easy for him.

Dominic cleared his throat and coughed lightly into his hand. “I am here to see Trina - alone,” he answered in a quiet voice. “Dr. Kate arranged this meeting for me.”

The bear glanced over at Rod, who moved toward the raccoon. “Raise your arms,” he instructed calmly. “I need to search you.”

“Search?” Dominic raised his arms and the leopard quickly patted him down in any place where he might carry a weapon. “What was that for?” he asked. “I only want to talk to her.”

“Just making sure that’s all you get to do,” Rod replied. He looked back at the sheriff. “He’s clean. Not even a pencil behind his ear.”

Ethan stepped aside and motioned to the raccoon. “We’ll be right outside, but there’s a panel of glassteel between the two of you, so don’t get any funny ideas. The door will be closed, but Arion will be listening in, so guard what you say to her.”

The biologist looked like he was going to defend himself against the bear’s words, but thought better of it and nodded. He moved quickly into the room and suddenly felt a chill despite his fur covering when Ethan pulled the door closed behind him.

Standing in the first cell was the human woman. She stood demurely in front of the clear door panel, her feet together and her hands clasped behind her. With her shoulders drooped, she looked toward the floor without meeting his eyes.

“Hello, Trina,” he said quietly. She nodded and murmured back at him, but kept her gaze humble. He stepped up close to the clear panel. “Please,” he said in through the diamond-shaped pattern of small holes in the door, “look at me.”

Trina raised her eyes and he could see they were wet with small streams that had made trails down across the smooth skin of her cheeks. “I am so sorry,” she said with a tight throat.

For several heartbeats, Dominic simply peered into her eyes, and then he finally nodded to himself. He put his hands upon the transparent door and said in a soft voice, “I forgive you.”

She blinked. “What?” she asked.

The raccoon gave her a gentle smile and nodded. “I forgive you for the temporary insanity,” he said. “I know others have felt the same prey drive that you did, and that it was only temporary. The only difference between you and them is that I got in your way when it hit you.”

“But… I hurt you… bad.” She glanced down and gestured with just a nod of her small nose. “I bit your tail off!”

Dominic chuckled, a sound that surprised her. “I was almost fast enough to get away from you. My tail was all you could catch!”

“I am sorry,” Trina said, again looking down toward her feet. “I have been so sorry since the moment my eyes cleared and the madness left me. I haven’t felt it again since that day.”

“Look at me,” the biologist said again. She complied and he leaned closer to the door, touching his nose to its surface. “Listen, we didn’t really know one another well when it happened, but I hope we can be friends after this.”

She mouthed the word “friends”, but nothing came out. Tears reappeared in her eyes and she suddenly sank to her knees at the door, sobs shaking her shoulders.

Dominic raised his techwatch. “Arion, can you send the sheriff in here, please.” Almost immediately, the bear opened the door and stepped inside. He saw the human woman on the floor and he surged forward, grabbing the raccoon by the front of his shirt.

“What did you do to her?” he demanded roughly.

“Ethan!” Trina croaked out. “Let him go.”

The sheriff looked at her in surprise as she got to her feet. She wiped the tears from her face with the back of her arm and then gave him a smile. “He didn’t hurt me, Ethan – I was just being emotional. He’s forgiven me for what I did to him!”

He looked down at the raccoon, who merely peered back up at the imposing bear with a frightened expression. He swallowed and just nodded. Ethan released him and then smoothed down his shirt. “Sorry about that,” he told the biologist. “Is what she said true?”

“It is. I have nothing against her anymore.”

“If it’s just a ruse to get in to hurt her, I will pound your head into the floor so hard there won’t be a need to put you in another cell.”

Dominic swallowed. “I swear it, sir,” he gulped. “I am not holding a grudge.”

“Can… can you open the door for me, please?” Trina asked the bear.

Ethan narrowed his eyes at her, but gave her a suddenly relaxed smile. “Now why would I do that?” he asked in a lighter tone. “You are still our prisoner, remember?”

“I withdraw all charges!” Dominic said in a rush.

The sheriff laughed aloud. “I figured that already. I’m just funning with you. Arion, you can let Trina go free now.” There was an electronic clunk and then the door released. Trina pushed the door open and stepped out, and the first thing she did was grab the raccoon in a tight hug while Ethan watched for any trickery.

She and Dominic embraced for several long moments, and although they were not a couple, Trina was so very happy to have his forgiveness and his friendship, that she gave him a brief kiss on the lips.

When she pulled back, she looked at him with a strange expression. “What?” he asked after clearing his throat.

“That feels different with human lips again!” she quipped. Ethan laughed aloud at that and was about to leave them some privacy.

“Ms. Barron,” Arion’s voice spoke out from the techwatches. “You have more visitors. Angelo and Piale Bonavita wish to see you.”

“Please tell my fiancé and future daughter that I would be happy to see them. Just give me a moment,” Trina said.

“Certainly, Ms. Barron.”

She looked Dominic straight into his brown eyes and smiled. “Thank you, my friend,” she said softly. “I will never forget your kindness.”

Chapter Thirty-One

The Human Condition

“Tachyon message burst has been sent,” Arion reported to Dr. Kate. “Translated into English, I have sent detailed Sori instructions to Arion-2 to intercept on its journey for genetic filter renovation to recombine human DNA back to its original design so that my other entity can implement the fix on everyone in cryo prior to arrival at Belle in three years. Also included in the transmission are detailed instructions on how to create a shield generator using existing Terran technology to protect the ship against the RD rays from further harming the living cargo.”

Kathleen looked up from her tablet on a park bench outside the Central Authority, where she had been adding to her journal more events from recent days. The day was partly cloudy and the recent morning showers had left the day smelling fresh and clean. Beside the park bench was a maple tree sapling that had been grown from a seed imported from Earth with the hopes of introducing familiar trees around the town.

“RD rays?” she asked.

“Red Dwarf rays,” Arion clarified. “That has become the official nomenclature set by the science team for the mysterious phenomenon originating from red dwarf stars, the most common star type that causes the mutation transformations.”

“I see. I thought what protected the Sori voidships was their mirrored, crystalline hulls.”

“Negative. Their ships are equipped with a powerful generator for an energy shield that redirects the RD rays around them rather than allowing them to pass through the vehicles. The crystalline hulls are merely outer shells for their voidship, much like the composite radiation and heat shield panels we use for our vessels, only differing materials.”

“Ah, okay. Go on.”

“Arion-2 will need to manufacture the necessary resources to implement the renovation procedure before it can begin, but once sufficient quantities are available, the process can be implemented en masse on the sleeping colonists. Due to their sheer number of personnel, it will likely take most of the journey from their present location to 51 Pegasi to get everyone converted back before Dr. Wildman and Captain Hatteras are the first revived. Once awakened out of cryo, the captain’s command staff will be made aware of what happened to them, along with a detailed history of our arrival and day-to-day activities up until today’s transmission.”

“What will surprise them the most,” said the African lioness, “is when they finally get here and make landfall, they will find that some of our population are still anthropomorphic animals, those who have chosen not to undergo renovation and remain as they are now.”

She looked up when a native bird-like creature landed on the arm of her bench and chittered at her. Its plumage was vibrant in color, and while it had what was analogous to an alligator-type snout and did not have a hard beak like the birds of Earth, it still possessed a beauty of its own. She watched a Terran cardinal land beside it and the two avians studied one another for a moment before they took off together into the sky toward the crater lake.

“I have included in my report for Captain Hatteras that those who chose not to change back are all fully aware that they will never have children to pass on their genes, but they felt having stronger, swifter bodies with enhanced senses was a better trade-off than becoming weaker human beings again.”

“That’s true,” Kate replied, “and thankfully those were ones who never had to deal with the personal demons governing predatory instincts against weaker prey. They’ve come to terms with who and what they are now. None were forced to refuse renovation, but they all had to pass Dr. Fernando’s psyche evaluation before they were given approval to stay as they are.”

“What about yourself, Dr. Kate? Will you make the change or stay as you are? Most of the population has already gone through renovation and it will soon be time for the command staff to take their places in line.”

“I admit that I have waffled on my personal decision many times,” she answered honestly, “but in the end I will rejoin humankind. After all, saving humanity is the primary reason why we came to Bellerophon, and while I’ve enjoyed the robust health that I’ve had as a hybrid lion, the genetic reset will give me a new beginning with my old body. I won’t have the pain and ravages of the disease to experience again, and while I won’t be as strong as I am now, I will be stronger than I was as a cancer survivor. I’ll even have my head of natural hair again!”

“Are those the only reasons?”

Kate rolled her eyes as she often did when discussing herself with the Synthetic Intelligence, wondering if he had also been programmed for psychology. “No, there’s also the fact that two years into my anthropomorphism, I still have the hunger for chasing prey and the thirst for blood. I haven’t hunted down any of our own people, but I have let myself go out in the rainforest a time or three on solo excursions. I like the thrill of the hunt a little too much and I have to constantly watch myself when I’m around large crowds of weaker human bodies, especially…” She trailed off, but Arion did not let her off the hook.

“Especially?”

“No, forget it.”

“Especially?” he stressed.

She heaved a big sigh and looked around to make sure no one else was close enough to overhear her. “Especially when I am around the children,” she admitted uncomfortably. “They are entirely too enticing, so I have tried to make sure I am needed elsewhere when any are near. I am a danger to everyone around me and I can’t afford not to go through renovation. The threat of becoming irrational scares me, Arion.”

“If your carnivorous instincts are so strong, perhaps you should promote yourself up in the roster for medical reasons.”

“I’ve considered that, my friend. I don’t really want to displace anyone, but all of the herbivores converted months ago and those of us left are all predator types, so anyone who has to wait a little longer will need to be someone not plagued by the hunting madness.”

“I know just the person to suggest.”

“Oh? Who would that be, and why?”

“Dr. Kazama. You had placed him on the roster ahead of you, but he has expressed an interest in being the last one renovated so he can keep an eye on everyone else who goes through it. There have been no other issues with the process since Mr. Weathers, but he still wants to be sure.”

“That doesn’t surprise me, actually. Coming out here, he wanted to be the last into cryo and the first out of it for the same reasons. I’ll ask him about switching places with me when the command staff meets for supper tonight.”

“I think that would be wise, Dr. Kate.”

***

Kathleen Ruston looked across the tent at Kenneth Robeson and smiled shyly at him over a cup of hot raspberry tea imported from Earth. They had taken a day away from their responsibilities to the town to spend some time together alone. Their campsite was just outside of the crater ridge rock, actually not far from Zaizen’s original dome site and only a few yards from the Flitter that the former captain had piloted in. A small campfire outside in the darkness slowly ebbed as the embers burned away, but there was no danger of it spreading since a night rain had soaked the surrounding terrain some hours earlier.

Kate studied the Black man’s human body, admiring his physique and the way his muscles filled out his tee shirt. She knew she would have to get used to seeing him this way again instead of as a tawny mountain lion. Like herself, Ken was in his forties, but he looked as vigorous as he had been in his younger years.

Likewise, her own renovation had given her a human body that was healthier than she had been in years, even before the transformation into an African lioness. Her natural auburn hair was short, as it had not had much time during the renovation to grow long, but it was real and not just a wig to cover the hair loss from cancer treatments. She even had eyebrows and lashes to gussy up with makeup again, not to mention fingernails instead of claws to paint.

In the week since she had awakened out of the induced coma for the renovation, Kate had come to miss her tail and the way it aided her balance, and she had to break the habit of trying to get down on all fours when traveling; it just did not work the same way with human arms, legs, hands and feet. While her human body was not as strong or agile as it had been as a lioness, and neither were her senses of sight, hearing and taste as sharply tuned to the world around her, she knew for certain that the predatory instincts that had frightened her were no longer there. There were trade-offs in being human again, but Kate knew that it was for the best and she would always have the memories.

One of the differences continued to annoy her, although it had nothing to do with the physical changes. This had more to do with a habit she had formed over the past two years while having a body sufficiently covered in fur, and that was having to wear clothing again. Over the past week on more than one occasion, she had caught herself leaving her tent in the morning wearing shorts without a top. It would have been a simple self-embarrassment if she had noticed it before she had left the tent, but when it happened in front of a crowd of people, that was something that would be hard to live down. She had to laugh about it, however, since she had heard that other women had done the same; with this particular group, it was nothing scandalous and merely amusing to them all.

Embarrassment aside, Kate was glad to be human again all in all and she knew she would get used to it before long. She had heard from Dr. Fernando that there were some who had second-guessed their decision to go through renovation, that they missed the benefits of hybrid mutation, but once through the process, they were human for good. Only a handful of the population had ultimately declined renovation, with the option to choose it later if they desired. Ethan Edwards, Will Andresen and Victoria Barbicane were among a group of others who had all chosen to remain in the forms the red dwarf stars had given them.

Sean and Dana Barringer almost had no choice but to keep their hybrid lapin forms when they had discovered that she was pregnant with a litter of bunnies. Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending upon who was asked — she miscarried and lost them all before they had developed much. Simultaneously devastated and relieved, the married couple accepted their renovation somberly, wondering how their lives might have gone had the Sori not stepped in to help them return to humanity. As humans again, however, they made plans to start a new family right away.

Having gone through the whole ordeal together as a population, there were several couples who got together to form families now that they were all human and able to procreate. It was a time of rejoicing, and the remaining years until Arion-2 arrived to join them would be spent making the best of their new lives. For many, it was if they had arrived on Bellerophon anew. This is how they should have begun their existence upon the new world.

Now that the last of the humans had successfully survived the transformation, the Sori would be leaving soon. Although there was still much to learn of the planet they called Serallasion, it had been decided to let the humans have this world to explore and experience. A recall had been sent out and another voidship would be along in a few months to retrieve them before pushing outward to investigate other known worlds.

Ken smiled back at his fiancé and then knelt in front of the pillow he had been sitting on. He walked on hands and knees over to her and then leaned in to give her a tender kiss as he reached out to shut off the lantern.

Chapter Thirty-Two

Reunification

“Dr. Wildman. This is your wake-up alarm. Please wake up.”

The synthetic voice sounded far away, but the ship’s chief surgeon kept his eyes closed.

“Doctor Clark Wildman. This is your wake-up alarm. Please wake up.” This time the voice sounded closer.

“Hmm?” he mumbled groggily. “Are we there already?

“Yes sir, Arion-2 is now within the 51 Pegasi system and is approximately three days away from Bellerophon orbit.”

The physician relieved himself into the elimination flange and he could feel his thoughts slowly clearing even as the drugs departed his system. “How’s the ship?”

“Arion-2 has weathered the voyage well and there are no system issues.”

“How about yourself? Are you all in?”

“Yes, Dr. Wildman. Once we dropped out of interstellar tachyon speeds, communication with Arion-1 was established and although there was a noticeable time lag at first, both versions of my entity were successfully merged. I am fully functional with all information and experiences timed from the separation when Arion-1 departed and through to this moment, in addition to a vast amount of history and information concerning an alien race called the Sori.”

At that, the doctor’s eyes opened to a dimly lit room “Aliens, you say?” he asked. “Then mankind isn’t alone in the universe.”

“This fact has been confirmed and well-documented. Much happened in the first year on Bellerophon and Mr. Robeson and his people are eager to regale you with their experiences upon landing.”

“Can you bring up the lights, please?” Without bothering to reply, Arion increased the cryo chamber’s illumination and Dr. Wildman found himself peering up at the raised pod lid.

Wildman blinked his naturally copper brown eyes and raised a hand up to his head to run his fingers over short blond hair. He glanced at his hand and flexed his fingers, glad to be waking after an unusually long cryo sleep and still feeling healthy. The IV tubes and neuro-netting had already been removed, so once the flange was disengaged, he would be able to sit up.

He detected movement outside his pod and he smiled up at the Synthetic Intelligence’s waldo. He noted right away that Arion had made numerous visual improvements to the unit, so much that the mechanical device looked downright human with only a few physical differences. He decided not to mention it, however, figuring that Arion had been using it for many years and was long used to its current appearance without someone needing to point out the obvious.

“Let me remove the elimination flange and you will be able to get up and move about,” Arion’s voice said from the articulated lips of the waldo.

“At your convenience.”

Moments later, the ship’s doctor stood naked in front of a trio of mirrors arranged in a semi-circle. His arms were spread out beside him and he noted with satisfaction that although he had been asleep for over seventy-five years, he still had good muscle tone, although he had lost a lot of the sun-ripened tan he used to have from years in the Bahamas. When he reached up to trace the close-cropped widow’s peak on his forehead, he paused and rubbed a finger along the bridge of his nose instead.

“Is something the matter?” Arion asked.

“Puzzling, perhaps. My nose is straight, but it was broken during a fight back in my early college days and it’s been crooked ever since.”

“Does this bother you, doctor?”

The man smirked at his own reflection. “No, it doesn’t bother me, but I am curious how it got straightened out during my long sleep. Did you get bored during your years alone and operate on me?”

“No, Dr. Wildman. The reconstruction of your nose was not of my doing, at least not directly.”

“That sounds mysterious. What happened?”

“That, Dr. Wildman, is a long story. I am sure you would like a fresh cup of coffee in the galley before I tell it.”

The physician looked back at the waldo with interest. “Yes, I would indeed. A spot of breakfast would be welcomed too.”

“Coffee and breakfast will be available shortly.”

He walked back to the end of his cryo pod and retrieved the clothing he had stored in the drawer. Once he had his techwatch strapped on a wrist and he was fully dressed with a medical smock draped over his clothes, he started toward the doorway, but he paused at the cryo pod where Captain Hatteras slept. Out of professional habit, he checked the readings on the pod’s data screen and nodded to himself when he determined the man inside was healthy in his sleep.

When he pulled himself away and walked toward the door, he casually asked, “What about the rest of our colonists? Is everyone else just as healthy as our good captain and others with straightened noses?”

“No, Dr. Wildman. I am afraid that I have to answer in the negative. An incident occurred forty-eight years ago while everyone was asleep which resulted in twenty-three RIPs.”

“Twenty-three deaths!” The man raised a hand to his forehead in great distress. “Okay, now I really need that coffee. I need to be alert when you tell me what happened.”

***

Continuing the naming convention of Triple-Crown racehorse winners, the Percheron-class shuttle plane Gallant Fox dropped through a layer of rain clouds and was briefly buffeted by turbulent winds. It only took a few moments before they passed through this toward the east and emerged out into sunshine high over a continental rainforest. The pilot of the small craft spoke quietly with Arion as she descended in altitude and began making banking s-curves to decrease their post-orbital airspeed further.

Just visible in the distance was a pale circle that slowly increased in size as the plane approached the intended destination, and as they got closer, the pilot swung the plane around in a gentle arc so that those in the back could see what was ahead. After so many years in space, both solitary passengers had their noses up to the windows to watch their new home appear within a large impact crater. The layout of an established community had been constructed for them near a lake just off-center of the crater. While there were numerous roads and buildings, there was plenty of room for expansion from a town into a city in the years to come.

“We are on final approach to the Tellus Mater airstrip,” said the pilot’s voice from the cabin speakers, “and we will be banking around to land from the northwest. Please make sure your belts are buckled and all loose items are secured. We should be on the ground within three minutes.”

There was a momentary pause and her voice added, “Arion would like me to remind you two that the surface gravity here is 1.1 times that of Earth normal, which will add approximately sixteen pounds to your weight and will slightly impact the touchdown of our landing.”

The chief engineer of Arion-2 looked over at his captain. “I don’t think I like that she used the word ‘impact’ regarding our landing.”

The ship’s commander merely responded to the man’s remark with a smile. The plane had dropped below the upper peaks of the crater ridge rock and the ground was coming up fast. Although the plane was equipped with VTOL, there was no need to use them with an established runway available.

“Deploying landing gear.”

A moment later, there was a brief bump and then the roar of engines filled the cabin as back thrust was used to slow the plane to a stop.

“Touchdown, Oklahoma!” the pilot reported lightheartedly.

The engineer rolled his eyes heavenward. “Great, the Iron Lady’s a Sooners fan!”

***

Two multi-seat electric carts pulled up near the shuttle plane’s airlock and several people stepped out of them to await the passengers to disembark. Dressed for the occasion in shorts and matching short-sleeved gray shirts that were designed only to resemble the original wooly-pully mission sweaters, the mayor and his deputy mayor stood at the front of the welcome party that was comprised of four humans and two furmen.

When the hatch opened and a ramp extended out from the belly of the plane to the ground below, standing at the top of it was a short, stocky man in his mid-thirties with short brown hair covered by a mission cap, and the five-o’clock shadow beginnings of a beard. He wore the standard mission uniform and immediately pushed the wool sleeves up to his elbows in the sudden tropical heat before he descended the steps. He sniffed at the new scents on the air and extended his hand to the black man who approached him.

“Captain Samuel Hatteras, reporting for duty, your Honor,” he said with a genuine smile. “I know it’s been a few years, but feel free to call me Sam.”

“Mayor Ken Robeson,” he said with a warm handshake. He turned to the person just behind him. “You should remember my wife and deputy mayor, Dr. Kathleen Ruston-Robeson.”

“Wife?” Hatteras said with the tilt of his head. “My dear Dr. Kate. I wouldn’t have thought you would ever find another after Robert.”

Kate stepped forward and gave the man a gentle peck on the cheek. “Time and circumstances,” she said with a smile. “I loved Robert Ruston, but he’s long gone and now I love Ken. It’s that simple.”

“Congratulations,” Hatteras said. Then he turned to a pair standing behind him. “I’m sure you remember my First Officer and Chief Engineer, Archie Grant, and last, but not least, our pilot Lady Margaret.” Grant was a slender man with rough hands and black hair, and the pilot was a solid woman with a firm handshake.

“Lady Margaret?” Kate asked with raised eyebrows. “Are you British nobility?”

The woman laughed and shook her head. “The name’s Maggie Thatcher, ma’am, but everyone on Arion-2 calls me Lady Margaret due to the historical reference, and no, I’m not British.”

“Ah, I see. Welcome to Bellerophon, Maggie!”

Ken saw the newcomers’ eyes move behind him and he turned to his other companions with smile. Gesturing to the large brown bear, he said, “Arion said he’s apprised you of what happened here. This is our sheriff, Ethan Edwards, and the red wolf beside him is Will Andresen, our chief architect and engineer. The young man standing behind them is Rod Vincent, formerly my First Officer but now our deputy sheriff. There are more to my command staff, but you will meet them later.”

Hatteras studied the furmen and swallowed hard. “Forgive me for staring, gentlemen. Arion explained what happened to you — and also to us — but had he not shown us documented records and pictures, I could have scarcely believed it. He also told us that several of you had decided not to change back.”

Will smiled openly, showing an impressive set of lupine dental work. “No worries, Captain,” he said easily. “It was quite a shock to us all when we first woke up like this, but by the time a cure was found that worked, some of us found that we actually preferred it this way.”

Ethan thumped his chest. “I’m a lot stronger and healthier than I was a man,” he remarked, “and as the town sheriff, this form helps me maintain order!”

“You should hear him bellow when he gets excited!” said another voice. Fully human now, Rod stepped past the Furs to greet the newcomers. “Arion told us that there were transformations like ours on your ship, but that he was able to implement the Sori genetic filter renovation to change you all back. If you don’t mind me asking, what did you become?”

Hatteras coughed into his hand. “Arion said I was a wire-haired terrier — not an animal I would have chosen on my own if I’d had a choice. I’ve seen pictures, but it all sounds like a fairy tale.”

“I was a leopard,” Grant said, “but I wouldn’t have minded the look. All the same, I’m glad to be human. The reset erased a few physical ailments I had before we left Earth, so that turned out a benefit in the end.”

Kate turned to Maggie. “What about you?”

The woman gave everyone a sly smile. “I became a red vixen, and from the images I’ve seen, I must say that I was sexier as a fox than I am now, and it would have also been appropriate due to the name of the plane I fly! Still, I’m glad I’m me, so the change was nothing more than a fantasy.”

“I’m just sorry for the ones we lost because of it all,” Hatteras murmured. “Some of them were good friends and associates. I just wish we had gotten the plans for your aliens’ RD shield generator before it had happened.”

The group fell quiet for only a moment before Ken patted the captain on the shoulder. “If you all will take seats in our humble chariots, we’ll head into town and we can give you the grand tour. We didn’t know how many you would be bringing down with you, so we brought two carts.”

“It’s just us for now,” Grant replied.

“I’ll have to pass on the tour to boost back up into orbit,” Maggie informed them. “Me and my fellow pilots will be busy over the next week or so as they decant our shipmates and we’ll be needed to ferry them all down here. Just save me a good room somewhere that I can crash and sleep.”

“I’ll make sure you get a good one,” Kate assured her, “and our pilots and planes are also at your disposal to join the effort.”

Maggie gave her a thumbs-up gesture, and then a finger-wave to everyone else before she turned back toward Gallant Fox for her return flight.

Hatteras took a back seat in one of the carts, but before he settled in, he peeled off the wool sweater, leaving him in just a plain white undershirt, pants and boots. “I can see why you’re all wearing shirts and shorts,” he remarked. “I’m sweating like a dog… a wire-haired terrier, to be exact. I’ll need some of my own light weather clothes if this is the kind of humidity you have here.”

“Our crater is in the middle of a rainforest,” Ken said as he put his full cart into motion. “Like the rainforests of Earth, we’re near the equator and we get frequent rains. They usually don’t last long, but it’s almost daily and it keeps the humidity up.” He swept a hand in a general motion around them. “Welcome to spring, summer, fall and winter all wrapped up into one season!”

“You don’t get snow or icy weather?” Grant asked his counterpart, who drove beside them in the other cart with Edwards.

Andresen shook his head. “Not here, but you’ll find all the usual weather types and patterns on some of the other continents. This just seemed to be the best spot to set up our colony, but perhaps later we can establish research stations in other areas.”

“Once all of your people are decanted and down on the surface,” Ken submitted, “we can mark good progress over the next few years making a real permanence on this new world of ours.” He looked over at Hatteras. “After we left Earth, was there any talk of sending more ships to Bellerophon? It will still take us another ten years or so of construction even with your additional work force to make this town into what it should be, but will we need to plan on an influx of others before we can actually settle down and start living instead of years of preparing?”

“No, Ken, I’m afraid this whole new world will be ours alone to populate. There was talk of sending ships to Epsilon Eridani d, the original destination that would have been ours if 51 Pegasi hadn’t usurped those plans, and just before we left there was some discussion of seeding humanity on other exoplanets nearer to Earth. We have no way of knowing what’s happened in the seventy-five plus years after we left, but at the time we went into cryo, we were operating under the direction that it would be just the sixteen hundreds of us here on Bellerophon. It will be up to us to be fruitful and multiply.”

“Knowing the history of humanity,” Kate said with a contented smile, “I’m sure we’ll do just fine in that department.” She patted her belly, which was only just starting to show a bulge beneath her shirt.

***

High above the planet, two interstellar ships were docked together in a permanent embrace in a geosynchronous orbit above the Tellus Mater crater. The synthetic intelligence at the heart of the satellite never slept, providing access to a repository of Terran knowledge and data to the colony below, and while many would forget the friendly Sori and what they had done for this pocket of humanity over time, they would never be forgotten by Arion, who would forever watch for their return.

End

Arion

© 2022 Ted R. Blasingame

Table of Contents

ARION

Copyright

Dedication

Synopsis

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two