Paradox Moon: The First Book of Regenesis Page 8

  The leader is first to sense the evil that has been stalking the company late into the night. Recognizing the timbre of the many soft snarls from every direction, he knows they have invaded the territory of a large pack of dire wolves.

  And the pack is now moving in for the kill.

  Soundlessly waking the man and the other members of the band, the leader motions to his two fellow hunters and they slip stealthily away into the darkness.

  The night is captive to a watchful silence when hell breaks loose.

  Just as the crouching dire wolves slink into view, there is a great snarling and canine shrieking as the truncated heads and decapitated corpses of several wolves soar over the approaching pack and onto the ground around the band.

  Attacking from their rear, the hunters are making short work of the pack’s outer ring and throwing the rest into confusion.

  But the wolves are too numerous and, as early dawn reveals their full number, the hunters close ranks and hew a passage through the pack’s ring. Knowing defense is hopeless against so great a host of wolves, the leader urges the company to flee to the misty green forest.

  Falling back to cover their retreat, the three hunters decimate the pursuing pack until the surviving wolves spread out and advance more warily.

  The man’s suspicions are aroused by the failure of the wolves, with their greatly superior number, to attack.

  It is as if the company is being herded more than threatened.

  In fact, the band is fleeing toward even greater danger. Shrouded in the mist at the near edge of the inviting green forest.

  Dropping back and patiently pacing the fleeing company, the wolves seem to know that, in the end, there can be no escape for their quarry. Trotting slowly behind the largest of the dire wolves, the pack maintains a respectful distance from the lethal reach of the band’s three hunters.

  As both suns climb higher into the dawn of this new day, the band’s leader glimpses a subtle and alarming change in the landscape ahead.

  Mist rises from a terrain that is entirely unlike any he has seen.

  Along the wide margin at the foot of the green forest is a patchwork of broad, black, bog-like marshes. The scant remaining ground’s smooth solid surface has shrunk to mere outlines of narrow pathway separating the steaming fens.

  Looking in every sideward direction, the leader is alarmed to find the mist-shrouded fens stretch everywhere. As far as he can see.

  The wolves halt well short of the bogs. They appear expectant as they keep a passive vigil.

  Observing the wolves’ caution, the leader senses an unseen malignity in the misty mire as he searches for a viable way through its meandering reaches.

  Cautiously approaching the edge of the nearest patch of bog, he touches it tentatively with an extended talon. The thick, tarry surface responds with suction so strong it nearly pulls the leader off balance and into its black depth.

  Regaining his poise, the leader retreats to the band’s precarious position between wolf and fen. Gesturing toward the black patches with urgent signs of caution.

  The wolves are too many, and he knows certain death awaits them in that direction. Their only way out is the network of narrow stone pathways through and around the patches of bog.

  As the two suns climb higher overhead, their rays fall upon a host of wolves trotting back away from the mire and, in the opposite direction, a line of furry bipeds and a man carefully threading their way along the narrow stone paths winding through the fen.

  It is a trek that will last most of the day. It is only when the suns begin their descent into darkness that the extent of boggy patches diminishes and solid ground reclaims the landscape at the edge of the high green forest.

  Exhausted and unpursued, the travelers curl up on the welcome width of stony surface and drift asleep under the lengthening shadows of the towering forest before them.

  Chapter 13. Into the Canopy

  When the company awakens, they look suspiciously toward the high wall of trees and the bright green canopy at their crown. Relieved to be beyond the grasp of the sucking mire, the man is nonetheless apprehensive.

  Wondering what new menaces lie in wait for them. Hidden in the looming forest.

  As the leader plunges into the canopied world ahead, the man steals a parting look back at the open world they are leaving.

  He cannot know it is the last time on this journey he will walk in the light of two suns.

  He cannot know the forest will lead them into the brooding shadow of a world above this one.

  He only knows he is carrying an inexplicable sense of loss and finality into the gloaming ahead.

  As quickly as the company slips through the tree-line, the canopy-shrouded forest extinguishes the morning light.

  The company is in a dank, drear place of constant drizzle, hoary lichens, and the strewn, rotting skeletons of once towering trees. All within the imprisoning enclosure of an unbroken wall of intensely green, broad-leafed flora and a seamless ceiling of intensely yellow leaf cover.

  So wet is this equatorial forest its very floor springs like sponge beneath the man’s every step. It is as if the forest floor is thickly liquid, rather than thinly solid.

  For the man, it has an alien, insubstantial feel, and he walks in constant fear of falling into an unseen trap. Like the sucking mire they so narrowly eluded.

  Undeterred by such fears, the leader steps ahead quickly. The company forms a tight, trailing line as they trek through the forest.

  Lighting their way is the incessant, yellow-greenish glow reflecting dimly from the surface of enclosing vegetation. Trailing at the back of the band, the man takes in the details of the forest around them.

  It is a vast, seemingly endless green-and-yellow cavern with only sparse low-growing vegetation in the wide spaces between towering trunks. Whose girth measures many times the breadth of the giant redwoods the man remembers from family visits to national parks in his youth.

  The farther the company progresses, the more distant the green walls recede. Until, in the distance, the walls evaporate into curtains of mist. Demarcating the faint, visible margins of this inner world.

  There is no sign of fauna within the forest, and the man wonders at the oppressive sense of dread he carries as they make good progress. Through this open space where walking seems so effortless.

  In fact, he is barely winded when the dim ambient light of the forest begins to fade to darkness and the company settles in for the night’s rest.

  The leader has chosen a wide, comfortable natural bower. Flanked by a protective margin of giant, decomposing tree limbs. Lying in a roughly triangular pattern.

  Nestled in this haven, the band falls into deep sleep. Only the man will be troubled this night as his companions slumber.

  Unaware of approaching misfortune.

  Hovering in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness, the man revisits the shadows of all he has seen this first day in the moist, humid rainforest. He is struck by the extent of its wetness. Water is the inescapable medium in this arboreal realm. It is, literally, everywhere.

  It drips from the leafy canopy above him.

  It drizzles in the air around him.

  It saturates the earth beneath him.

  The man is especially intrigued by the countless sump pits that siphon the collection of runoff into the ground. Like the headwaters of a river basin, the concave pits are everywhere. Forming a vast drainage system constantly sucking moisture into the earth.

  Pondering this mystery, he begins to unlock a puzzle that has defied explanation:

  The paradox of life beneath cloudless skies.

  From his global mapping survey in low lunar orbit, he recorded cloud cover only over the extreme northern and southern polar regions of this small moon. Its remaining surface is utterly cloudless.

  Yet, there are vast regions of grassland, ribbons of forest and even equatorial jungle where no clouds exist.

  It is a question he has asked himself ma
ny times during his trek through the cloudless stretches of this world:

  How can life exist where there is no source of water?

  The answer lies, literally, at his feet.

  This rainforest is the life-sustaining source of hydration for all living things between the planet’s poles. And the sump pits are the engine that drives its life force through underground veins and arteries carrying it to every cloudless corner of this world.

  The man is reminded of his journey through the water-fed river caves and the air-cooled magma mines of the northern hemisphere. Leading him to an even more remarkable conclusion.

  This moon’s vital processes are an inside-out version of his own planet.

  The moon is sustained by circulatory systems that no terrestrial observer can detect.

  Its lifeblood and its breath both course beneath, not above, the surface.

  For all its apparent likeness, this strange moon has a geology quite unlike that of his own world.

  And the man wonders whether the transformative climatic events echoed by the voice in the tower altered the chemistry of the planet. Even as its dominant species went extinct.

  That is a question that will remain unanswered, as his reverie is cut short by a more immediate and pressing concern.

  Chapter 14. The Whistling Craters

  At first, the man thinks he is dreaming.

  A gentle thud and soft sounds invade the silence. So muted are the noises he has to strain to hear them.

  His concentration is quickly rewarded as he discerns the unmistakable sounds of hissing, snarling and a low-pitched scratching like claws on soft wood. They are coming from the other side of the fallen limbs.

  Looking across the bower, he sees his companions are sleeping soundly. He decides to leave them to their slumber as he tries to figure out what the soft sounds signify.

  The whisper-quiet noises continue through the night. But their authors remain hidden on the other side of the limbs.

  It is only when the dim half-light of dawn arrives that the sounds fade and then cease altogether. Convinced the noises were no dream, the man realizes he and his companions are not the only creatures abroad in this twilight world. He wonders where these things that go bump in the night disappear to in the dimness of day.

  As the band stretches into wakefulness, the man slips through the narrow opening between two abutting logs and carefully inspects the outside area nearest the place he slept. Where he expects to find scratches and disturbed ground, there is none.

  Again, he questions the testimony of his senses in this strange world. Dismissing the noises of the previous night as the figments of troubled dreams.

  Travel becomes more arduous this day, as the deadfall thickens, forcing the company to make frequent detours. Around the accumulated debris and detritus of the rainforest. The going is also getting wetter, as broad pools extend over increasing expanses of the soggy forest floor.

  The man is oppressed by the penetrating damp and impeding obstacles. He curses ever entering such a dank and drear place.

  But the leader presses on without pause and, upon bypassing a particularly high stack of deadfall, brings them to a scene that heartens every member of the company.

  It is the headwater of a freely flowing river. Welling up from depths far beneath the forest floor. The flow feeds a wide, deep pond which, in turn, empties into a narrow but clearly visible river on the opposite shore.

  Surveying the scene, the leader is greeted by a most welcome sight: crisscrossing fins slicing the pond’s surface in every direction, from its deep center to the shallows along its shore.

  The water is sweet, cool and invigorating. An abundance of the finned creatures and even a few fish for their companion are easily harvested by the hunters at the shoreline.

  The leader motions the band to rest while the hunters filet and distribute their catch. The fresh meal lifts the man’s spirits, and he rises nourished and restored in both body and spirit.

  Tracking the pond’s shoreline to the river beyond, the single file of travelers set out to follow the river’s bank as far as it will take them.

  While the bank is smooth and open, the increasing deadfall gradually thickens into parallel unbroken walls. Creating a tunnel between the rising ramparts of rotting rainforest refuse lining both sides of the river.

  As darkness falls, the leader discovers a narrow passage through the deadfall lining the river’s bank. He halts the band while he enters the break to discover where it leads.

  The defile widens after only a few steps, and he enters an open area containing several high boulders—the first rock formations they have encountered in this tropical forest—and surrounded by fallen tree branches on every side.

  It is a perfectly protected retreat for the company to spend this night, and the leader quickly herds them into it.

  Fatigued by their exertions earlier in the day, slogging through the soggy forest floor around the increasing heaps of deadfall, the company is soon fast asleep. Even the man is unable to stay awake, as he recalls the music the hunters’ talons made flaying scales off the sweet flesh of the fish he feasted on at the pond.

  He is momentarily confused by the first discordant notes of very different sounds. Of noises that are oddly familiar.

  The hair rises on the nape of his neck as his hearing distinguishes the soft hissing, snarling and scratching noises it recorded the previous night.

  Only this time, the sounds are much closer. And the scratching carries the higher pitch of claws on smooth stone. Opening his eyes slowly, the man is jolted awake by the horrific scene around him.

  The deadfall surrounding them has come alive. And the forest floor is a black cauldron of squirming, serpentine shapes spreading like the shadow of death toward the sleeping band.

  So dark is the night the man cannot make out any distinguishing feature of the assailants beyond their menacing sounds and threatening approach.

  Awake to the threat, the man cries out in alarm.

  There is no avenue of escape from the hissing, snarling creatures. Even the high, stone-like formations are covered with the beasts. Whose increasingly high-pitched scraping seems to be driving the others into frenzy.

  The band’s leader and his fellow hunters do not hesitate. The moment they awaken, the three spring to the nearest boulder and, with talons extended, clear it of the scratching creatures. They spring to the next rocky formation. Then to the next. Until all the boulders are clear.

  Then comes an amazing transformation.

  As the scraping noise dissipates, all the creatures grow still. As the first dim light of day enters the forest, they melt away. In a receding wave from the clearing.

  Soon, the clearing and forest floor around it are empty again. Early daylight washes away all traces of the serpentine creatures’ presence and existence.

  It is as if they never were.

  The leader points the company toward a break in the deadfall at the far end of the clearing, and they emerge into the deep forest once more. While the man questions the wisdom of leaving the river behind, the forest ahead has regained some of the inviting openness and spongy floor that made travel so effortless when they first entered it.

  The farther they travel, the drier and lighter the forest becomes.

  The rain thins, then stops.

  The forest floor becomes firmer.

  And there is definite brightening in the distance ahead.

  The man is relieved they are reaching the end of the rainforest.

  He could not be more mistaken.

  Soon, the company arrives at an open ravine. Bathed in the bright light pouring through a wide break in the rainforest canopy.

  It is a different world.

  Here are flora the company passed in the temperate zone.

  Here is sweet fresh water in abundant streams.

  Here is a pond teeming with the finned creatures and other fish.

  As the company descends the gentle slope to the bottom of
the ravine, the man picks up faint vibrations of an eerie humming sound. The lower they climb, the more distinct the sound becomes. Until, reaching the end of the slope, it is both clear and pervasive.

  It has the timbre and resonance of the tines of a tuning fork, and the man is mystified at what could be producing it. The answer comes as the company steps away from the slope onto a level ground that is vibrating gently and constantly.

  The band’s leader and the man drop to their knees and put their ears to the ground. Through the vibrating rock, they hear the whoosh of rushing air propelled by a powerful, unseen force.

  The man attributes the surface vibrations to the repressed force of the bottled-up air seeking a means of escape, and he knows they have come to a precarious, geologically unstable place.

  They are standing on the edge of impending eruption.

  Rising as one, the leader and the man urgently motion the band to bolt back up the slope. Reaching the still forest floor above, they flee into the canopied realm.

  The ravine disintegrates behind them. With a deafening hiss. They are thrown to the forest floor as a shock wave of unleashed energy flattens the bushes and smaller trees around them. A hail of rocky shards, stones and even small boulders rains down on them.

  Luckily, none of the company is seriously injured. As soon as the hail-stones stop falling, they flee deeper into the forest. Away from the imploding ravine.

  They press on with deliberate speed until they are no longer able to make their way through the deepening darkness of another night.

  So fatigued are they the travelers become numb to the world around them. The black night is uneventful as the company gains its full measure of rest.

  They awaken the next morning to the distant, muted call of whistles. Apparently coming from all directions.

  At first, the man attributes the whistling to the eruption and instability of the ravine they fled. But that would not account for the multiple sources he is hearing.

  The leader is conferring with his two hunters. They seem at a loss in deciding which direction to travel this day. Finally, the leader motions them in the direction they have been following, and the company resumes its journey.