Chapter 4: Trilateral

“You should keep your beast close,” Murzka said as she stalked through the forest, her round ears twitching and swiveling at every distant sound. “I still say that you should have left it at your camp. It may frighten away the prey.”

“This isn’t my first rodeo,” Cal replied, keeping his rifle handy as he trudged through the dense undergrowth some distance behind her. She tended to stay at the limits of his vision, the mist making her appear even more ghostly and ethereal than she had before. “Nor is it Kevin’s. He’s been trained as a working dog since he was a puppy, and he’s been around a lot of very dangerous animals. I don’t suppose you know what a polecat is?”

“No,” she muttered, her eyes scanning the trees.

“Well, it’s a very dangerous predator. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

Poppy was following just behind him, doing a remarkable job of keeping pace despite her legs being half the length of Murzka’s. She never seemed to tire, just waddling along happily with his gear clutched in her arms and his pack hanging from her back.

“You sure you don’t want me to carry some of that?” Cal asked, glancing over his shoulder at her. “The backpack, at least?”

“Nope,” she replied, leaping over a jutting root without breaking stride. “I’m the sherpa – I carry the stuff.”

“Alright,” he mumbled, giving her a shrug. Murzka almost seemed annoyed by her assignment, but Poppy was full of enthusiasm, taking her job very seriously. Maybe it was a more desirable task than digging tunnels or servicing machinery, or whatever it was that Workers did in a hive. As much as he was looking forward to seeing the Araxie in their village, he wanted to explore the hive, too. In many ways, it was an even more alien environment than the jungle.

As he walked along, he noticed that there were patches of moss missing from some of the trees. It was so prevalent that any place where the bark showed through was noteworthy. He paused to examine one of them more closely, seeing score marks on the wood beneath. It was as though something had scraped it away.

Murzka leapt into the air with deceptive ease, using her hooked claws for purchase as she scaled a nearby trunk, biting into the wood. Like a spider monkey, she climbed her way up into the canopy high above them, leaping to another branch to get a better view, crouching as she surveyed the path ahead. She really did seem to be in her element here, and it still blew his mind that she was capable of similar feats of athleticism in forty percent higher gravity than this.

Kevin dropped his stance suddenly, as he had been trained to do when he detected something, his ears rising.

“What is it, Kev?” Cal whispered as he took a knee in the ferns beside the dog.

“Should I stop?” Poppy asked. Cal put a finger to his lips, and she went quiet, crouching as he had. Before he knew it, Murzka had descended, landing so silently that he hadn’t even noticed until she was standing next to him again.

“Prey ahead,” she murmured softly. “Do you wish to observe, or to take the kill?”

“I only want to observe,” he replied.

“Follow,” she said, starting to creep forward.

Cal did as she asked, remaining at a crouch, watching his step so as not to snap any twigs. Fortunately, the ground was so soft and the detritus so wet that there was no danger of crunching dry leaves underfoot. Kevin’s pads made him almost as silent as Murzka, but Poppy was a little clumsier, the bags that she was carrying shifting around.

They approached a gap between two trees, and Cal gestured wordlessly for Kevin to stay, the dog keeping still. Murzka pointed into a clearing ahead of them with a clawed finger, and Cal followed it to see a shape on the far side of a patch of ferns, maybe fifty feet away.

There was a creature there, standing upright with its forelimbs leaning against a tree. It was moving its head, scraping at the moss, suggesting that it was responsible for the missing patches that he had been seeing.

It had a slender, somewhat deer-like body, a barrel chest tapering into slimmer hips. Instead of fur or scales, it was covered in glistening skin that looked tangibly wet, its hide patterned with varying shades of green stripes to help hide it in the jungle foliage. It had four limbs that were a little more splayed than one might expect to see on a mammal, but its posture was still more upright than that of a reptile, its feet ending in stubby toes equipped with dull claws.

It had a long neck with odd, knobbly joints, its small head scouring the moss with a bony beak to strip more of it away. No ... that wasn’t right. The longer he looked, the more he realized that something was wrong – his eyes were trying to make sense of something that defied his expectations. That was no neck – it was an extra limb jutting out from between where the shoulder blades would have been on another animal. What he had assumed to be its head was actually a modified foot, the beak that he had seen revealed to be a single fused claw shaped like a shovel blade. It didn’t even have a tail – that was a second modified limb.

He heard a twig snap, turning his head to see Poppy grimacing as she crept up behind him. She mouthed I’m sorry silently. The creature whipped around to face them, fully alert now, giving Cal a better view of its strange physiology.

It did have a head, which was situated at the intersection of its three forward limbs, its stubby skull suspended on a short, muscular neck. Its three dark eyes were equidistant from one another, spaced out around the head, along with three leaf-shaped organs that might be ears. They flared open, twitching and turning as they scanned for more sounds, creating the appearance of a blooming flower. At the end of its short snout was a trio of beak-like mandibles, the blades intersecting to form a three-way scissor. Now that he could see the modified forelimb from a new angle, he could spot the vestigial, atrophied toes to either side of the main claw.

“Trilateral symmetry,” he whispered, his eyes wide with wonder. This animal had clearly started its evolutionary path as something like a starfish, perhaps with three legs instead of five, maintaining that body plan even as it had developed into a more complex animal. Just like how animals on Earth had maintained their bilateral symmetry from their earliest common ancestors, so had this creature, with a sagittal plane divided into three segments rather than two.

Perhaps the transition from water to land had required it to adopt a more familiar terrestrial posture, but without the need to be used for locomotion, those extra limbs had specialized into something far more unique.

The alien finally spotted them, and the extra hindlimb that Cal had mistaken for a tail rose up above it. Long, spindly fingers almost like the wings of a bat splayed wide, stretching thin webs of skin between them. Like a parasol, it fanned out, flushing with blood to reveal striking eye spots. It waved the distracting display back and forth rhythmically, trying to make itself look larger and more intimidating, then let out a warbling bray before bounding off into the mist.

“Holy shit!” Cal laughed, rising to his feet. “That was incredible! I’ve never seen anything like that!”

“Sorry,” Poppy winced. “I scared it away...”

“No, I’m glad you startled it,” Cal replied excitedly. “Did you guys see that threat display? The way that back leg came up and fanned out? Those are modified limbs – the dominant animal group on EE-4 must have trilateral body plans!”

“What does that mean?” Poppy asked. “Three of everything?”

“Basically, yeah. We’re split down the middle with the left and right sides mirrored, but that animal was split three ways – like someone slicing an apple. Murzka,” he added, turning to peer up at the towering alien. “Do your people have a name for those things? What are they called?”

“We call it mossgrazer,” she replied. “They are prey – good for eating.”

“That’s what you were tracking,” he added with a satisfied nod. “That modified claw leaves distinctive scrape marks on the bark where the moss has been stripped away.”

“Indeed,” she added, raising a single eyebrow. Perhaps she hadn’t expected him to be so proficient of a tracker himself.

“Go see, Kev,” Cal said.

The dog leapt to his feet, prompting Murzka to move out of his path as he blazed between the two, jamming his nose into the ground. He began to sniff around the tree where the mossgrazer had been feeding, the sound of his sniffing audible even from so far away.

“He’s getting its scent,” Cal explained as Murzka watched with disapproval. “Once he learns what an animal smells like, he’ll be able to track it or warn me if he smells another one.”

“So, you use this animal as a tool to compensate for your deficient senses,” she mused. “You cannot smell or hear as a razorback can, so you make use of those attributes.”

“You can’t throw as hard or as far as a crossbow or an XMR,” he replied with a nod to her rifle. “It’s not really any different in principle. I’ll bet his senses are even a little better than yours.”

“Doubtful,” the Araxie grumbled, watching Kevin circle the tree.

“What about you, Poppy?” Cal asked as he glanced down at his sherpa. “Have you ever seen one of these before?”

“Not a live one,” she replied, adjusting the weight of her pack. “I’ve seen dead ones brought into the hive for processing in the Replete chambers, but I’ve never seen one out in the wild. Workers don’t usually get out this much,” she added, confirming his earlier suspicions.

“Let’s press on,” Cal said, marching forward. “I wonder what else we can find.”

They explored the jungle for a few hours more, though they came across nothing quite as exciting as the mossgrazer. Still, Murzka had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of the local flora, answering any questions that Cal asked her. There were the mosses and ferns, vines that could be cut open to reveal stores of potable water, and various herbs that could be used in cooking or which had medicinal properties. Her people had only been living on the planet for a couple of Earth-standard years, yet they were already developing their own form of bushcraft. Even with modern doctors a short car ride from the village, they were still interested in which plants could be mashed into a salve, or if any flowers could be chewed to alleviate pain.

As they made their way through the misty trees, Murzka raised a hand, gesturing silently for them to stop. Cal had Kevin sit, his head on a swivel as he searched for what the Araxie might have seen, eager to spot any new alien lifeforms.

“Ahead,” she said, seeming less wary of startling whatever it was this time.

Cal moved up to her side, peering into the jungle. There was something in the mist that clung low to the ground, disturbing it like a fish swimming just below the surface of the water, rustling a few ferns as it passed along. Whatever it was, it was a long animal. Maybe some kind of snake?

As it climbed over a root that lifted it above the fog, Cal recoiled, seeing a segmented body flash past. It was covered in interlocking plates of armor like an insect or a crustacean, but with the same trilateral symmetry as the mossgrazer, it more resembled a living spinal column. Each plate was a dark brown in color with red stripes that ran down the length of its winding body. It twisted as it moved through the undergrowth, the rows of legs that propelled it making contact with everything they could reach, the creature apparently having no designated belly. It was a couple of feet long at least, resembling some kind of prehistoric centipede, the thing disappearing as quickly as it had arrived before he could get too good of a look.

“Great,” Cal grumbled. “Now we have that to worry about. Low gravity, high oxygen content, rainforest climate – it figures.”

“They are not dangerous unless provoked,” Murzka explained. “They feed mostly on fallen plant matter and detritus found on the forest floor.”

“I was just hoping I’d finally found a planet that wasn’t full of creepy bugs,” he sighed. “Uh, no offense,” he added with an apologetic glance at Poppy.

“None taken,” she replied, the way that she narrowed her eyes at him suggesting otherwise. “If we’re at all related, it’s very far removed, and probably on my mother’s side. Maybe if we come across any monkeys, you can ask them for directions,” she chimed as she strolled past him with a smirk.

Cal caught an inscrutable look from Murzka – it was impossible to tell if she was amused by their interaction or not – then he continued on his way.

They soon heard the unmistakable sound of trickling water, a burbling stream coming into view ahead. It was narrow enough that he could have stepped over it with a single stride, but it was flowing quickly, the water clear enough that he could see the smooth stones lining its bed. Kevin wasted no time trotting over to it and starting to drink greedily, while Murzka positioned herself a little further upstream of him, submerging a large waterskin and letting the flow fill it.

“You should get yourself one of these,” Cal said, brandishing the canteen from his belt. “It has a condenser that automatically refills it by siphoning moisture from the atmosphere. I even have one for Kevin with a little folding dish that he can drink out of.”

“Water is even more plentiful here than in my home territory,” Murzka replied as she replaced the cork and stowed the container beneath her cloak. “We need not roam far to quench our thirst.”

“This seems as good a place to stop to eat as any,” Cal declared as he appraised their surroundings. “You guys brought lunch, right?”

“A scout never leaves the village without supplies,” Murzka replied as though it was a foolish thing to ask.

“I don’t need to eat all that much,” Poppy added. “I’m very compact.”

“We can share,” Cal chuckled. “I don’t know what Jarilans eat, but I’m sure there’s something in the ration pack they gave me that you’ll like.”

“You might be surprised,” she replied cryptically.

They settled in beside the stream, sitting on a conveniently sized root, Poppy setting down the bags on the forest floor and shrugging off Cal’s backpack. She passed it to him, and he fished out the ration pack, tearing open the plastic wrapper. It looked like something a Marine might eat, and if he had to guess, it was probably military surplus. They had stocked the cupboards in his prefab with a few of them. He was already missing the freshly barbecued steaks from Franklin, but it would do.

“Beef and bean burrito,” he declared, holding up one of the packages. “Product of Franklin. Even all the way out here, I can’t escape it.”

Murzka gave him a questioning look, so he explained where he had come from and how the colony produced so much of the UN’s food supply.

“My people take only what we need from the jungle,” she eventually replied.

“Yeah, try doing that with a couple of dozen billion people to feed and see where it gets you,” Cal scoffed. “Some planets in the UN simply can’t sustain their populations with what can be farmed locally. Barren, airless moons, deserts and ice worlds – everyone has to eat.”

“Why live in those places to begin with?”

“The enterprising human spirit,” he joked, the feline cocking her head at him.

“Energy efficiency is kind of built into us,” Poppy added. “We primarily eat honey, which is formulated by our Repletes to be a perfect balance of nutrients and proteins.”

“Like the kind bees make?” Cal asked.

“Kinda,” she replied with a smirk that suggested she wasn’t telling him the whole story.

He turned his eyes to the ration pack again, fishing around inside the plastic bag.

“I thought I’d seen some,” he said, lifting a little container that resembled a toothpaste tube. It was the same brown color as the bag, with the words honey and product of Jarilo stenciled on it. He offered it to Poppy, and her eyes lit up, the Worker plucking it from his hand with a dexterous lower limb.

“Jarilo honey!” she exclaimed, starting to unscrew the lid. “I haven’t had any since I left home! If I’d known the humans were hoarding it, I might have traded them some fresh fruit for a few tubes.”

“How long would that little packet last you?” Cal inquired as she brought a feathery antenna down to smell it as though sampling the bouquet of a wine.

“Two of these would feed me for a day – more if I had to ration it.”

“It must be incredibly calorie and energy-dense, then.”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “Now, hold out your finger.”

Cal did as she asked, and she squeezed a little blob of translucent, amber gel onto the tip of his digit. It really did look like honey, and it had the same consistency. When he brought it to his lips, he found that it was pleasantly sweet, and there were more complex flavors that chased it.

“It’s pretty good,” he conceded with a nod. “How do...”

He trailed off, watching as Poppy began to eat. The small plates that made up her mouth and lower jaw split open horizontally like a beak, revealing the pink flesh beneath her red chitin, shattering the illusion of mimicry. Cal could see no teeth – not even a throat. Instead, a long, flexible tube began to extend from within. It was a thin, prehensile proboscis, the organ slipping into the small opening on the container of honey. Dumbfounded, he watched as little bulges began to travel up its length – like some kind of cartoon mosquito.

“Sorry, have you never seen a Jarilan eat before?” she asked. Her mouth was no longer moving in time with her speech, suggesting that her vocal cords were located somewhere else entirely. Was the whole thing a sleight of hand trick solely for the benefit of their human counterparts?

“I didn’t mean to stare – it just surprised me,” he replied apologetically. “Can you eat solid foods at all?”

“Nope,” she chimed. “Everything that we eat needs to be in liquid form, but we can drink a lot of human drinks. Fruit juice, spirits, soda – things like that. We had bars back on Jarilo where we’d mingle with humans and try different drinks. I really liked sparkling water. It tickles on the way down.”

“How is honey made?” he inquired as he watched her suck up more of it from the tube. “You said that it has something to do with Repletes? In ant species, like honeypots, the repletes store sugar water and regurgitate it for the other castes...”

“Nothing so unsavory,” she chuckled – able to laugh while drinking like a ventriloquist. “Yes, our Repletes eat various foods like plant matter or meat and digest it into a nutrient paste that we call honey. They don’t regurgitate it into our mouths, though.”

“How do you get it, then?” he asked warily.

“You’ve been around cows,” she said, gesturing to her chest plate.

“You milk them?” Cal said with a grimace. “Do I even want to know how that works physiologically?”

“Don’t knock it ‘till you’ve tried it,” she replied, smiling with her eyes while her mouth was occupied. “Tastes even better fresh. The flavor varies a lot based on diet, and people on the homeworld have even started fermenting it into a kind of mead. Like your Franklin beef, it’s probably our largest export. It gets included in a lot of MREs and emergency rations due to its high energy and nutritional content. The Marines call it Jarrie Juice.”

“I think I’ll stick to the burrito,” he muttered. He slid the packet into the flameless ration heater pouch, then added a little water from his canteen, setting the chemical reaction going. As he waited for it to cook, wisps of steam rising from the bag, he turned his attention to Murzka. She was reaching into one of the many leather pouches that adorned her belt, her large stature letting her carry around a remarkable amount of gear on her person. She could have hung his backpack from her hip and it would have only been the size of a satchel to her. When her furry hand emerged, it was clutching strips of what looked like jerked meat.

“What’s that?” Cal asked, looking over curiously.

“The meat of the mossgrazer is smoked and dried on a rack beside a fire,” she explained, tearing off a piece. She gave him a short glimpse of her sharp, feline teeth as she chewed. “It is the same technique that we use to preserve rations in our home territory.”

“Mossgrazer jerky,” he mused. “What does that taste like?”

She paused, then reached out with an inhumanly long arm, passing a strip to him. He leaned over and took it, his hand briefly brushing hers. That fur was as soft as velvet and slightly moist to the touch, as though the humidity in the air was clinging to it.

“One moment,” he said, reaching into his pack again. “Better safe than sorry.”

He produced a handheld molecular scanner, passing the sensors over the food and waiting for the little display to show him the results. It showed proteins, minerals, salts – nothing that might be toxic or allergenic to humans.

Cal brought the meat to his mouth and took a bite, giving it a chew.

“Kind of tastes like pork rinds,” he mused. “Not bad, actually. That thing didn’t look like a mammal or a reptile, so what was it?”

“I believe they’re amphibians,” Poppy replied. “Or, close to amphibians.”

“Like frogs or salamanders,” Cal added with a nod. “They’d do well in this kind of climate. There’s a lot of oxygen, and very high humidity to keep their skin moist. Fascinating. I’ll have to pore over whatever data the UAS has been able to collect on them. Speaking of which,” he continued, reaching for the steaming ration packet. “What’s the deal with those electrified fences back at the UAS base camp? Surely those aren’t for keeping out centipedes and mossgrazers?”

“There are more dangerous animals in this valley,” Murzka replied. “Backstabbers, for one.”

“Backstabbers?” Cal repeated, glancing between his two companions. “Is that a real thing, or are you pulling my leg?”

“Pulling your leg?” Murzka repeated, glancing at him in confusion.

“A human saying,” Poppy explained. “It means he thinks we’re joking.”

“They are apex predators,” Murzka continued, taking another bite of her jerky. “They hunt the mossgrazers, along with anything else they believe they can overpower. The hive is safe, and the paths between the settlements are watched by scouts and sometimes patrolled by Jarilans, but do not venture into the deep jungle without protection.”

“Kevin and I can handle ourselves,” Cal replied, giving the rifle that was leaning on the root beside him a pat.

“I have been tasked with your protection,” she added. It was a tacit vote of no confidence in his abilities.

Kevin was lying at his master’s feet, watching him eat, a long strand of drool hanging from his jowls. Cal snapped off a piece of the jerky and tossed it to him, the dog snatching it out of the air.

“What does Kevin usually eat?” Poppy asked as she sipped at her honey.

“Razorbacks are omnivores and scavengers,” Cal explained. “They’ll eat basically anything that will fit in their mouths, and I’m pretty sure their stomachs are full of battery acid. He’s quite happy to eat regular dog food – he’s not picky. Most of the time, the bigger concern is stopping him from eating the random crap that he finds on the ground.”

“I think it’s cute,” she giggled. “He’s kind of like a Replete, but he keeps it all to himself.”

“You said you could drink other things, right?” Cal began as he produced another little packet. “How about this? It’s raspberry drink powder.”

“Raspberry?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve had that before, but I’ll try it.”

He filled up a collapsible cup with water from his canteen and stirred in the powder with a plastic spoon, the drink soon turning an unnatural pink. When he handed it to her, she dipped her proboscis into it, taking a sip.

“Hey, not bad!” she exclaimed.

“Can I offer you a taste of Earth cuisine?” Cal asked, brandishing the unwrapped burrito and waving it at Murzka.

“No thank you,” she muttered, wrinkling her nose as though she disapproved of the smell.

“Don’t like beans?” he asked, reaching into his rucksack again. He pulled out a second MRE and checked the listed menu on the back, then ripped it open. “This might be more your speed,” he added, fishing out another packet. “Pizza with cheese, tomato sauce, and pepperoni.”

He set the self-heating packaging going, and they didn’t have to wait long before it was ready, Murzka’s nose twitching as he opened the steaming wrapper. Her green eyes followed it curiously, but as reluctant as she was, the scent was too enticing to refuse.

“Careful,” Cal warned as he passed it to her. “It might still be a little hot.”

She tested it with her sensitive pads, then pulled out the square slice of pizza, giving it a tentative sniff. After a quick lick to make certain, she took a bite, strands of melted cheese linking it to her lips. All pretenses of trying to appear aloof evaporated, and she took a second, greedier mouthful as she perched on her root. It was barely the size of a snack bar to her, and it didn’t take long before she was licking her furry fingers and picking her teeth with a sharp claw.

“How was it?” he laughed, watching her round ears twitch. “Good?”

“I have tasted worse,” she replied as he started on his burrito with a smirk.

When they were done eating, Cal packed away all of the wrappers and empty packets, then reached for the duffel that Poppy had been carting around. He produced a few simple vials and plastic containers, walking over to the edge of the stream.

“Seems like a good place to take a few samples before we head back,” he explained as his companions looked on. “Soil, water, plant clippings – things like that. I’ll have something to compare against the data the UAS has been collecting. When we plan a proper expedition deeper into the jungle, I’ll bring some more sophisticated equipment from the base camp. They seemed to be pretty well stocked when they gave me the tour.”

“I’ll have to bring a bigger pack,” Poppy joked.

“You are sure that you are prepared for this?” Murzka asked skeptically, tracking him with her emerald eyes as he dipped a vial into the water. “You have but a day’s experience of this jungle.”

“Like I said, I can handle myself,” he replied with a glance over his shoulder. “Besides, you’ll be there, right?”

When they eventually returned to the Araxie village, the sun was dipping behind the mountains, the blue sky turning a deeper hue that bordered on black. Cal could already tell that there was something different about the settlement, a faint glow permeating the rolling mist. As they neared, he saw that there were electric string lights strung up between the trees in places, but they were so dim that they barely provided enough illumination to see by. Still, it staved off the growing darkness, its warm glow giving the clearing a more welcoming feel.

Poppy had told him that the Araxie were nocturnal, and this must be their equivalent of morning, because the village had come to life in his absence. The previously empty clearing was now bustling with activity. The aliens were hanging around in groups of four to six, talking as they walked between the domed dwellings, going about their business. Most were dressed just like Murzka, with sparse leather clothing and capes woven with leaves, each one of them sporting a different combination of pouches and belts.

It was a little surprising to see that they were all just as athletic and muscular as she was, the males sporting biceps the size of his head, but the gravity that he had felt inside Murzka’s home gave them little choice in the matter. It was simply necessary for them to support their massive frames in their native environment. A 400lb creature didn’t leap like a cat in 1.3Gs without some serious muscle power.

He was amused to see that there were children and adolescents, too. The older kids were just smaller versions of their parents, being shorter and slimmer, but the younger Araxie looked like giant, bipedal kittens. There were swaddled babies strapped to their mothers’ chests with slings, their big, green eyes peering out from beneath the shadows of the cloaks. The more ambulatory ones were rushing about at the adults’ feet, racing and tumbling, playfighting in the ferns. Cal was a little alarmed to see some of them playing rather high up in the trees, but in this gravity, a fall might not be much of a concern.

The Araxie weren’t alone – he could see Jarilans from the nearby hive, too. The dim lights must be for the benefit of visitors. There were willowy Pilots who were nearly as tall as the eight-foot felines, squat Workers like Poppy who traveled in little groups, and some intermediate caste that he wasn’t familiar with. The latter were closer in size to a human, being a little stockier than the Pilots but slimmer than the Workers. All of the same features were present – the rainbow of colorful shells, their white fur and feathery antennae, and their ornate horns. The Araxie appeared at ease around them – he could even see a Pilot crouching down to tease a kitten with a fern leaf, the furry feline leaping up to bat at it excitedly with its stubby paws.