Fiction Complete by Phyllis MacLennan

Author:Phyllis MacLennan [MacLennan, Phyllis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2025-10-09T00:00:00+00:00

VIII

At the edge of the apron he picked up the tracks of the dolly-trains and followed them, forcing himself not to hurry, squinting against the sun. He had never seen the planet in daylight before except through the darkened windows of the station. The sun-smashed landscape had a harsh, glaring beauty uniquely its own. Colors shrieked at him: the incandescent brilliance of the orange soil, the fiery crimsons and yellows of the boulders and chichi shells, the puddles and pools and splashes of purple-blue shadow looking almost solid in the desert air. Gentle hills rose plumcolored in the distance, with streaks of white along their flanks like bleached, exposed bones. Even the blue of the sky was dazzlingly deep, unreal, and its contrast to the tender, cloud-washed heaven of Thygnos was most alien of all the strangenesses.

At first it seemed that nothing lived. The skeletons of the pliquot trees clutched their leaves so tightly to them they formed a solid surface, etched by lines like scales. The twin shells of the chichi vines were so tightly squeezed together, a piece of paper would not slip between them. He saw no trace of vot-vines. Where did they lurk? As interest and wonder grew, his attention sharpened. He began to notice small movements in the shadows, and darting things that flashed in the air like jewels, emerald and ruby and sapphire. One landed on a pliquot tree nearby, and he moved toward it to examine it, slowly, so as not to frighten it. Like a tiny enameled toy, it clung to its perch with two legs and a threadlike tail, settling its layered wings, patting the surface beneath it with its forelimbs, preening itself and twisting as if for his admiration. Delighted, he leaned forward to look at it more closely. A sticklike arm shot over his shoulder; claws snatched it up and crushed it.

He turned, indignant, to face a zap which now held the dead creature out to him. The shields over its mouth-parts slid aside, and it twiddled its palps at him in friendly greeting. It pushed the corpse of the flying thing closer to him, and he stared at it in horror.

“Don’t want?” That much he caught of what it said. It shrugged, popped the victim into its mouth, politely closed its mouth-shields and enjoyed its snack before addressing him again. Its speech was of course too rapid for him to follow, and he told it so. It sized him up in a flash.

“Thirst-shock,” it diagnosed confidently, unhooking a canteen made of something like ceramic from a belt around its waist and holding it out to him. “Drink!” Before he thought, he downed a couple of swallows. “All, all!” the zap urged, snapping its claws impatiently.

Ever obedient to a direct order, he emptied the flask. Whatever the stuff in it was—and it hadn’t been water, as he had expected it to be—it was a pleasant-tasting and refreshing beverage, aromatic, with a hint of sweetness. A light fragrance touched his memory: the scent of the night air.

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