Paradox Moon: The First Book of Regenesis Page 7

  Instead of the wide, open river delta the leader expected, they are approaching a deep, impassable river gorge as their only way out of this far end of the valley.

  It is time for decision, and the leader wants the input of his fellow-hunters before committing the band to a sure and certain course. As other members of the band stretch and shake off the previous night’s sleep, the hunters adjourn to a scattering of the large boulders to sit and discuss what to do next.

  But as soon as they sit down on the smooth, convex surface, the rocks spring open and, as the hunters fall within, immediately snap shut.

  Alarmed by the abrupt disappearance of the leader and his fellow hunters, the other members of the band panic and scatter to take refuge at the valley’s wall where they huddle in confusion.

  As they hide there, frozen in place, a figure magically materializes from the wall’s stony face and, axe in hand, races to the three boulders.

  The man immediately assails the three convex surfaces with strong blows from his axe. Each constricting boulder opens and disgorges its prisoner before snapping shut once more.

  The leader and his two hunters are keening as small patches of their exposed skin bubble angrily.

  Recognizing the corrosive symptoms of acid exposure, the man frantically motions them toward a small puddle by the river’s bank where he quickly splashes water on their sores. The bubbling ceases as soon as water cleanses the flesh, and the hunters collapse into sitting positions gently touching and nursing their wounds.

  Casting cautious, wary eyes on the clam-shaped boulders, the rest of the band take great care to avoid coming too close to them as they join the others at the river’s edge.

  And they all eye the man and his short axe with new understanding and respect.

  Chapter 11. The Diluvian Plain

  The reunion is as warm as it is unexpected. The rescued leader and fellow hunters raise their furry arms in tribute to the man’s timely intervention.

  Surprised at how quickly they shake off the painful effects of their acid burns, the man motions them toward the cave that led him here. Looking up toward the valley’s high, fog-shrouded rim, the leader takes notice of the flight of two suns and the ensuing darkness that trails behind.

  All are gathered within the cave’s sheltering walls as blackness swallows the world without. At once, they curl up on the hard, stone floor just inside the cave’s entrance, and there they sleep the night through.

  The man is first to awaken, with the early rays of two suns peeking into the cave’s entrance. He is joined shortly by the leader. Stepping outside, the leader motions toward the deep, unscalable river gorge and shakes his head at the impossibility of escape in that direction.

  Reading his resignation and disappointment, the man points hopefully and reassuringly back at the cave. In agreement, the leader nods toward the cave as well.

  Thus is their future course decided.

  Following in the footsteps of their leader and the man, the band is perplexed at first by the downward direction of the tunnel. After a short distance, however, the man halts the company and motions them into a narrower side tunnel.

  This one has a definite upward inclination.

  The band is disheartened by the utter darkness and closeness of the tunnel, but their sense of maintaining an upward direction is reassuring. Forming a tactile chain, each member in constant touch with the one ahead and the one behind, they continue the long, arduous climb.

  Just as fatigue begins to overwhelm them, the leader sees a distant, muted lightening of the tunnel walls in the far distance ahead. He commands a halt to rest for the night.

  He does not know what the distant light portends, but he does know he would rather face that uncertainty fully awake and refreshed after a night’s rest.

  When he opens his eyes again, the distant light is bright and welcoming, like the dawn of a new day. The leader wakes the rest of the company, and together they step up their pace toward the inviting light. Covering the distance quickly, they all spill out of the cave onto the solid roof of the river valley.

  Walking to its edge, they are greeted by a spectacular view.

  Full of thunder and violence.

  Compressed by the high, narrow gorge, the force of the raging river is magnified to a deafening roar of gushing energy. So intense is its pressure the water creates a horizontal cataract of angry, spewing streams that shower the delta beyond in vast sheets of driving rain.

  But the most extraordinary feature of the cataract is its rise from the valley floor to the high desert above. Creating a waterfall that leaps upward rather than falling downward.

  Mesmerized by the river’s upward rush, the man marvels at the force required for the water to counteract gravity in this way. And he is relieved to have gained the roof of the valley without having to contend with the raging river and its narrow gorge.

  Falling away from the valley’s edge, the rim is an elevated ridge that slopes gently to the high desert floor. Affording the company a clear view of the landscape beyond the wide curtain of water spewing from the river gorge.

  To the man, it is like peering into John Keller’s Garden of Eden. At the same verdant, waterfall-fed landscape. A land of lush green flora etched with shimmering lakes and streams.

  Drawn by its promise of life and sustenance, the man motions toward the spreading delta and follows the leader and his band down the short slope to the wide green world ahead.

  When they reach the first expanse of plant-life, however, they discover a barrier they could not discern from their prominence atop the elevated ridge. Concealed by the thick, low-growing vegetation is a watery surface radiating in every direction.

  The entire delta is a floodplain, and they will have to wade through its uncertain depths to cross it. The prospect is a threefold uncertainty:

  They do not know the nature of the flora.

  They do not know whether the flooded terrain is impassably deep.

  And they do not know whether fauna are about and, if so, what threat they may pose.

  Still, there is no going back. They must confront the uncertainties of this watery world in their quest to gain the opposite side.

  Untroubled by these concerns, the leader and his band splash straightaway into the greenish wetland, which they find to be shallow and easily passable. Following their lead, the man can only wonder how far their good fortune will hold.

  He does not have long to find out.

  While the going is easy, the company makes good progress wending their way through the low-growing greenery. By nightfall, they have made it as far as the first hammock, a small bar of sparsely-vegetated dry land rising out of the wetlands. There, they rest this night.

  Dawn’s early light unveils a horizon the travelers did not see when they arrived at the hammock in the dim light of late dusk. In the distance ahead, the stunted, horizontal mat of greenery they traversed the previous day ends at the base of a high wall of much taller and thicker mega-flora.

  The man’s spirit quails at the sight of the solid green wall. He wonders how the company is going to cross such an impenetrable barrier. So thick is the tall vegetation no trace of light glimmers through its expanse to reveal even a narrow passageway.

  Undeterred, the leader abandons the dryness of the hammock and resumes splashing through the shallows, followed by the rest of the band with the man trailing behind.

  The bright suns reach their zenith by the time the company reaches the wall, and the man knows they have a full half day of light to find a way through.

  Exploring the margin of the green wall, the man is discouraged to find that just as the height of the flora is rising so the depth of the water is mounting. In fact, he nearly loses his balance when his foot finds no purchase as he takes a step toward the mega-flora. It is as if the elements of the wetlands—receding bottom, deepening water and thickening flora—are conspiring to bar their way.

  The man is distracted by a cry from one of the hunters
who has waded to a point farther down the wall where the high vegetation seems thickest. So thick it resembles a continuous, unbroken chlorophyll surface.

  Reaching upward from the watery base is a narrow black slash. It is this feature that has attracted the hunter’s attention.

  As he approaches the hunter, the black slash assumes clear shape and definition. It is a narrow opening through the solid green wall.

  The leader is first to enter its depth. One by one, the rest of the company disappear through the narrow opening.

  The green tunnel rises quickly, and the company emerge onto a seamless canopy of brilliant green and yellow fronds carpeting the mega-flora as far as they can see into the distance ahead. They are on the roof of the floodplain forest, and the solid mat of fronds makes progress swift and effortless.

  While the band takes this good fortune in stride, the man’s thoughts are on the singular tunnel that brought them here. And on the prodigious strength required to hew it through the wall’s unyielding, fibrous growth.

  Deep in his own thoughts, however, the man fails see the menace that is stealthily stalking the band across the canopy.

  But they are not harassed as they make good progress high above the wetlands.

  When night falls, the leader calls a halt to the day’s trek and members of the band begin to curl up on the mat of green and yellow fronds. As they find sleep, the man remains wakeful, still spooked by his concern about the unseen architect of the slash tunnel.

  He is nearly asleep himself when, late into the night, he is awakened by a soft hissing sound. Opening his eyes slowly, so as to be imperceptible to any but the most discerning observer, the man beholds a savage visage.

  Eight, hate-filled eyes glare at the sleeping band.

  Ravening mandibles ooze slimy droplets of bright orange.

  Sharply serrated leg segments display long claws.

  And a heavily-armored carapace protects a crab-like hulk.

  As the monster scuttles silently toward the company, the man unsheathes his knife and hand-axe. For a sudden attack to disorient the beast and buy precious time for the band’s hunters to awaken and defend themselves.

  Leaping at the beast from a crouch position, the man catches it completely off guard. But before it can retreat, the hunters are upon it with fang and talon ripping through its chitin armor and killing it instantly.

  Again, the man is amazed and gratified by the alacrity and lethality of his companions. Whose peaceful demeanor is so deceptive.

  The man feasts on fresh flesh that night. He relishes the flavor that is so reminiscent of the fat blue crabs his family steamed in large pots during summer visits to the Chesapeake’s eastern shore.

  The furry bipeds disdain the fare. It is not in their singular food chain.

  When they awaken, with daylight bathing the fronds in soft hues of green and yellow, the leader strikes out in the direction they have been traveling. After a short trek, they reach the end of the forest canopy. With its sheer drop to the solid earth below.

  For the man, it is a moment for gut-check and sobering reflection.

  Spread before them is a narrow stretch of dry open plain running to the margin of grasslands stretching as far as he can see.

  From his global-mapping observations, the man realizes they have reached the wide sea of grass separating the northern hemisphere’s high desert from the moon’s equator. He sighs with resignation at the prospect of so much ground to cover before they reach the lush zone of steaming equatorial forest.

  The canopy of fronds begins to open at the edge of the forest, and the company finds easy pathways through the branching tree-limbs to the ground below.

  They cross the narrow open plain and enter the grasslands, where the leader and his two fellow hunters strike out in different directions ahead of the band. The man dutifully remains with the others as they trek on in the hunters’ wake.

  As darkness spreads across the land, the hunters return and lead them to a small stream coursing lazily through the grass-covered terrain. Bedding down for the night, the band will follow this watercourse for as far as it leads them through the sea of grass.

  It will prove to be a fateful choice.

  Thankful for the bounty of sweet, fresh water, the man washes down his last MRE with conflicted feelings. Relief in marking the company’s progress thus far. Anxiety about exhausting his supply of emergency rations.

  Like his furry companions, the man will be forced to live entirely off the land. But unlike them, he cannot go for long periods without nourishment.

  Slipping slowly into a light and troubled sleep, the man dreams of all he has confronted since entering this strange world. His thoughts are a moving kaleidoscope.

  Of the ghosts of fallen fellow crew members.

  Of a new Eden full of life and mystery.

  Of a mutual alliance of alien species.

  Of the depredation of a threatened planet.

  Of the ancient civilization that perished.

  And of the surreal beauty and savage menace of this vivid, vibrant, variegated world he mapped from low lunar orbit and is traversing now.

  He is conflicted by the sorrow of grieving a lost past and the euphoria of discovering a new and future world.

  Thus passes the man’s first night in the expansive grasslands: a vision of all that has been.

  Little can he envision, as he trudges alongside the band in dawn’s early light, all that yet will be.

  The leader continues to follow the stream’s bank, whose open, level terrain hastens the band’s progress through the endless sea of grass. The stream is infested with fish of every type and disposition, from the vicious torpedo-shaped predators and harmless prey-fish the man encountered in the river caves to the familiar finned creatures the band’s hunters pull from the stream at will. The waterway furnishes both sustenance and a convenient pathway through the rugged, choking grassland.

  Despite the man’s usual caution and vigilance, an easy complacency and self-satisfaction crowd out any concern such a provident place might lure others as well.

  That truth will dawn on the company in an unforeseen and lethal manner.

  Chapter 12. The Mud-Lurkers

  The company follows the stream’s bank for time beyond reckoning. The farther they travel, the laxer they become. The journey acquires a monotony and rhythm of its own, as each new day replicates the previous day and the travelers become numb to the world around them.

  It is on just such a day that tragedy strikes—deadly and without warning.

  After traveling most of the day, the company comes to the first bend in a stream that has flowed straight as a die from the first day they set foot on its bank. So jaded are they the company fails to consider this first divergent feature of the stream might be a harbinger of other preternatural things.

  A number of unusual slick, muddy mounds line the bank, separating the pathway the company has been following from the stream itself. It is a short detour, and the leader motions them to pause there for rest.

  As he crouches on the path’s surface, the man sees a member of the band lean his back against one of the muddy mounds to rest.

  Almost immediately, the mound begins to shake as a large host of pulsating, blood-red, six-legged creatures pour from the mound, swarm over the intruder and pull him into the muddy cauldron of angry, living death.

  The man cries out in alarm as the other mounds begin to shake and the furry biped disappears entirely into the disturbed mound.

  The leader grasps the danger at once. The horde is identical to the creatures from the breathing towers on the high mesa, and he knows what the quaking mounds portend.

  Springing to his feet, the leader motions the band into the high grass away from the stream, and they flee as one. After a fast and furious flight through the high weeds, the company arrives at an elevated mesa rising gently above the grass. Where they stop and pause.

  Closely watching the mannerisms and movements of his fellow-tr
avelers, the man is struck by their lack of expression or demonstrative sorrow over the loss of one of their own. A member of the band has perished, and their demeanor remains stone-faced and stoic.

  He does not know it is not in their nature to grieve over what is lost and cannot be redeemed. Theirs is a nature devoid of second-guessing or regret.

  He does not know the leader has an overpowering urge to restore the band’s numbers. Now depleted by two, including the failure so far to replace the Old One.

  Nor does he sense the leader’s frustration at his inability to act until they are in a safe place. Where childbearing will not expose them to the vulnerabilities of travel through a savage and uncertain world.

  As shadow creeps onto the mesa, the band settles down for the night and, fatigued by the mad dash away from the muddy mounds, all are soon fast asleep.

  Awakening to the rise of a new day, they quit the safety of the small mesa and resume their journey through the grassland on a course leading directly away from the stream.

  While his companions can go long stretches without food or water, the man cannot. He wonders now where he will find sustenance after leaving the bountiful stream behind.

  As the grass thins and the land becomes arid, the leader and his band are suffering outwardly from exposure to the relentless heat of two suns. The days have become successively hotter since leaving the deep valley, and the merciless heat of this dry land is taking a heavy toll on the furry bipeds.

  Nonetheless, the gritty creatures are determined to press on, and the mid-day finds them many leagues from the mesa. In sight of a curious, misty green horizon.

  The leader knows, in this sub-polar world, greenery means plants. And plants mean cover and relief from the intense rays of two suns.

  He also knows the green horizon is too distant to reach this day. He slows the band’s pace, conserving energy for a final push the next day following a full night’s rest.

  When night brings cooling, soothing shade, it finds the company well short but within easy walking distance to the mist-shrouded green forest ahead. But this last night in the grassland will test their prowess as well as their endurance.