“Uh, boss,” Bergstresser said as Hattelstad poured water on the foam. His leg armor was partially eaten away and very bent. “I’ve got movement popping up all over the place. Most of it’s going away but a bunch of it is headed this way.”
“So much for samples,” Jaenisch said. “In the words of King Arthur—”
“Run away! Run away!” Hattelstad crowed.
“We are so out of here.”
“All teams report to the boat for decon,” the CO said as Charlie Second cleared the long grass. From the conn he had an eagle-eye view of all the activity around the boat and had monitored the small battle carefully. He also noted that Weaver and Miller let Charlie retreat behind them before backing up. “Security commander, pull all science teams in first, then security.”
“Roger, Command,” Captain MacDonald said.
“Commander Weaver,” the CO continued. “I want you in first.”
19
“What is that thing?” Weaver asked, looking through the armored glass of a sampling cage.
“I’m with the Marines,” Julia answered. She was carefully dissecting the thing inside the cage using a waldo system. “Crab octopus. Crabpus Jaenischa, Jaenisch’s Lion Crabpus. It’s less like a standard exoskeletal species than a turtle. The body is endo-exoskeletal while the legs are askeletal tentacles. They extend from eight openings in the shell on the underside. The spit is probably an enzyme designed to cut through or weaken the armor of its prey. From the damage to the Marines’ armor, I’d say it’s a weakening agent. I’m surprised it worked on the armor; you’d think an enzyme would be tailored to the material of the exoskeletons.”
“After the Marines pulled out, a bunch more of these things, some of them bigger, descended on the skirmish site,” Weaver said. “All that’s left is some shells.”
“Not surprising,” Julia said distractedly. “In an area like this, any disturbance is a chance for food for scavengers or predators.”
“So we going to be able to move around?” Weaver asked. “The CO would like to know.”
“Not easily,” Julia said, delicately picking up a gland and laying it in a dish. “These things are nasty. I’ll be able to tell him more in a few hours.”
“I’ll take the hint,” Bill replied.
“Not much of a core,” Dr. Dean said looking through the glass. “Where’s the soil?”
“That is the soil, Doctor,” Staff Sergeant Kristopher said. “There was only about a meter of soil, then I hit the rock. And that was pretty straightforward granite. It was hard to cut so that’s all I could get before they pulled in the teams.”
“Only a meter of soil?” Dean said, frowning. “That’s not right. An area like this should have had a fairly extensive lay-down. You can see the traces of uplift so this area was probably under the ocean at one point. Where’s the silt? I’d have anticipated at least fifty meters of soil.”
“Well, Doctor, what you got was one,” Kristopher said. “And then granite. What got me was I expected some sedimentary rocks.”
“I wish we could have landed in the mountains,” Dean said, frowning. “This just doesn’t make sense.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Staff Sergeant Roberts said.
“What you got?” Bartlett asked tiredly. Okay, while doing field sampling was boring, the lab portion was just tedious. All that collected material had to be sorted, counted, weighed and analyzed. While Dr. Robertson got the fun of dissecting the crabpus, he and Roberts were doing the sorting of the collected botany samples.
“I’m only getting about three species,” Roberts said. “All this grass stuff. I mean, you get fifteen or twenty in the most worked-over areas in Africa or original Great Plains prairie. I’m only getting three species of plant life. Four more of a pseudo-insect. Even the soil’s only got two worms in it. This stuff is cleaner than my lawn.”
“You’re right; that’s not right,” Bartlett said. “I guess we need to talk to Dr. Robertson.”
“Bio is still pondering,” Dr. Beach said. “But Geo has some items to bring up.”
“There is something wrong with this world,” Dr. Dean said, frowning. “The soil in this area is far too thin for the observed conditions. And I took a look at the video taken of the surface on the way in. There are no traces of certain forms of sedimentary rock. Notably, I couldn’t find a single trace of shale, oil shale or coal. Sandstone, yes. But nothing organic. No limestone, even. You’d expect to see some of that somewhere. But none of the views showed any. Anywhere…”
“That’s because the world’s been terraformed,” Julia said, walking into the meeting followed by Bartlett. “Recently. Well, geologically and biologically recently. Not sure if we’re talking about a million years or fifty million, but I’d guess closer to a million. Maybe less. We may even be talking about recent.”
“That’s interesting,” Weaver said, frowning. “Very interesting. It also explains what an advanced biosphere is doing on a moon of an F 5. Any clue by whom?”
“Only that they liked crabpusses,” Julia said, sitting down. “Crabpussies, crabpus, crabpi… Not sure what the plural should be, frankly. Ain’t my department. Bio is. Bartlett?”
“The botany samples are incredibly sparse,” Master Sergeant Bartlett said. “Very limited biodiversity. The soil is very thin with an igneous understructure, indicating that soil has only been being caught by biological processes quite recently. Even the various animals caught in the video are all so similar that they indicate no more than at most a few dozen original species. And an analysis of the enzyme that ate Bergstresser’s armor shows that it’s designed to break down a wide range of compounds into edible materials. It won’t just eat armor; it eats most plastics and does a hell of a job on the crabpus armor.”
“That’s the sort of thing I’d expect to see if a very advanced race was sending down some pioneer species,” Julia said. “Most of the species we’ve found show traces of being pioneer species. They’re all very hardy, probably fast spreading. There are actually fewer species than I’d expect to find in a good terraforming. I’d say that someone got started on terraforming this world and got interrupted.”
“Any idea about the species involved?” the CO asked. “Not Dreen?”
“Definitely not Dreen,” Julia said. “We found one trace of a Class Three life form. Just a soil fungus. Apparently there was some life here before whoever terraformed it got going. And Class Three is the class that Dreen derive from. But it isn’t close to Dreen form. And the species that terraformed the world is Class Four. But that’s all that we know about them. Except that they liked crabpus. I think that they put down one or more species of crabpus that was some sort of organic clearing system and it’s evolved into about ten or twelve, all closely related.”
“And what are we going to do about those?” the XO asked.
“Depends on what you mean, Commander,” Julia said, grinning. “Wouldn’t suggest eatin’ ’em.”
“I’m more worried about them eating us,” the XO noted, dryly.
“That’s security’s job,” the CO said, looking over at Captain MacDonald. “Mac?”