Chapter 6: Bushcraft

The Araxie led them to a small clearing in the jungle, this one filled with more flowering bushes. The flitterflies must be inactive at night, because they were no longer swarming in search of nectar. Instead, there was an odd shimmer in the air, Cal lifting his head to the open sky as he walked out of the dense trees. The gap in the canopy was only a few meters across, but there was something in the mist – little points of light picking up on his goggles. Were those stars seen through the fog?

As he passed by one of the bushes, he disturbed the leaves, a small cloud of lights rising up from the foliage like embers from a fire. They floated lazily – directionless – seeming to surf on the breeze. He lifted his goggles, wanting to see them with the naked eye, their dull yellow glow picking them out through the gloom. One of them landed on his outstretched hand, and when he looked closer, he saw that it was a tiny creature. Like the flitterflies, it had a long stalk with a trio of fine legs at the bottom, and three wings at the top. It was far smaller, however. There was a bulb halfway down its body that glowed with a soft bioluminescence like a firefly, and when it lifted off again, it didn’t flap its wings. Like a maple seed, it held its wings out straight, rotating through the air on the wind.

“Beautiful,” Poppy laughed, running a lower hand through a bush and sending another swarm of them drifting into the air in a luminescent cloud. “I’ve never seen these around the settlements.”

Kevin began to snap at them, jumping and biting at the air, his own movements creating a breeze that sent them scattering – much to his amusement.

“These weren’t in the UAS files,” Cal mused, watching them swirl through the mist. “I’d better take one back. Lemme grab my net, Poppy.”

She put her back to him so he could rummage through his equipment, and he was soon fumbling around in the dark with his little insect net, swiping through the air as Murzka looked on disapprovingly from her perch. It didn’t take long for him to catch one, and he bottled it up in a specimen jar, stowing it away safely.

“Make camp however you wish,” Murzka said. “I have business to attend to.”

With that, she darted off into the jungle, leaping from branch to branch until she vanished into the shadows.

“What business do you think she has out here?” Cal wondered aloud.

“I dunno, but you’d better get your tent set up,” Poppy replied as she shrugged off the heavy pack and set it down on the ground. “I’m clocking out.”

“Alright,” Cal said, reaching for the pack as she stepped aside. “I have to admit – I’m looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep...”

“What’s wrong?” Poppy chuckled, watching him falter as he tried to lift the pack.

“Nothing, uh...”

She snickered at him as he tried again, the heavy resin frame leaving furrows in the dirt as he heaved, resorting to dragging it instead.

“Having trouble there, big guy?” she cooed. “Need a hand or four?”

“I got it,” he grunted, turning it around so that he could access his rolled-up tent. He set his bivvy bag aside, picking up the tent and flipping down his goggles again, searching for a suitable patch of bare ground that hadn’t been claimed by the bushes. When he found one, he unfurled the tent, laying out the billowing fabric like a blanket on the forest floor. There was a small metal cube attached to one side, and with the press of a button, a little fan whirred to life and began to draw in air. In only a couple of minutes, the tent had inflated to its full size. It formed a vaguely rounded, triangular shelter that was tall enough for Cal to sit up inside, and with a footprint big enough to accommodate both him and Kevin.

“Impressive,” Poppy said as she examined it.

“It has an air filter with climate control, it’s fully waterproof, and it’ll keep out any centipedes or critters that try to find their way inside. What about you?” he added, glancing over at the pack. “I didn’t see you pack a tent.”

“Oh, I don’t need a tent,” she replied as she raised her two upper hands.

Cal watched curiously as she walked around the clearing for a moment, seeming to search for something, then she stooped low to the ground. Before he could ask her what she was doing, she began to throw clods of earth over her shoulders, Cal leaning over to see that she was digging into the soil. She was using her upper hands as shovels, closing the two blade-like fingers to form a scoop and driving them into a sloping patch of ground, already having excavated a furrow a few inches deep.

“What the hell are you doing?” he inquired.

“Digging a sleeping hole,” she explained without missing a beat. “I said that you didn’t need to bring that sad little shovel, didn’t I?”

“What are you, a fucking badger?”

Kevin noticed what she was doing and trotted over to join her, his tail wagging excitedly as he began to scrabble at the dirt, digging his own little pit.

“Are you helping, Kev?” Poppy giggled. “Good boy!”

It only took maybe ten minutes for Poppy to excavate a tunnel deep enough that she could vanish inside, Kevin poking his head in and blocking the entrance like it was a game. Cal walked over and shooed the dog away, taking his place at the opening, his goggles letting him see in the darkness. There was a tunnel that sloped upward before dropping again, presumably to keep any water out, and it led to a chamber that was just big enough to fit Poppy’s four-foot frame snugly.

“You don’t get claustrophobic, I take it?” he asked skeptically.

“Don’t give me that look,” she chuckled. “These burrows are cool in the summer and warm in the winter. They keep rain and snow out, and they’re quite safe. It’s just as good as your fancy tent.”

“What are you doing?” he asked, grimacing as she licked the palm of her hand with her proboscis and slapped it against the dirt wall.

“Coating it in resin so it doesn’t collapse,” she explained.

“Wait ... that clear resin on the walls of your hive...”

“All Worker spit,” she replied, smirking at his expression. “We can secrete a kind of saliva that hardens on contact with the air – enough that it can be used structurally. It’s strong, rigid – yet flexible, and it acts as an insulator. It also has antibacterial properties and can be used to close wounds.”

“I think I’ll stick to med gel,” Cal replied.

“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug, licking her hand again pointedly. “If the spit cave makes you uncomfortable, then you can stay outside.”

“The spit cave is all yours,” he replied, withdrawing his head and shoulders from the entrance. “Hey!” he added, grabbing Kevin by the collar as the dog tried to take his place. “Come on, you. She’s not playing hide and seek.”

He led Kevin back over to the tent, sitting down on a convenient rock and rummaging inside Poppy’s giant pack for the camping stove. After setting it up, he began to boil some water to make tea, the faint orange glow of its flame casting flickering shadows. It would have been nice to build a proper campfire, like the big bonfires they used to make back on Franklin, but finding dry wood in this place was probably about as likely as finding a food truck.

As he sipped his freshly brewed tea, he noticed that Kevin was tracking something, the dog turning his head up to the canopy. Before Cal could slip his goggles back on, a shadow dropped down a couple of meters away, landing in the ferns with a dull thud. Through the darkness, he saw a pair of reflective, emerald eyes shining in the scant firelight.

There was a louder thud as Murzka slung something off her shoulder, dropping it to the ferns at her feet. Kevin trotted over to give it a thorough sniff, and Cal slid his goggles on, the fire from the stove blowing out the lower left corner of his vision. Immediately, he recognized the fan-like rear appendage of a mossgrazer, its six limbs draped limply across the jungle floor.

Cal whistled for Kevin, and after a moment of reluctance, the dog returned to his side.

“You caught a mossgrazer?” Cal asked as Murzka dragged the limp animal closer to the fire. “I didn’t hear any gunshots.”

“I slew it with my knife,” she replied as though it should be obvious.

“I’m surprised you were able to get so close to one,” Cal marveled. “They seemed pretty flighty.”

“The backstabber is said to employ a similar method,” she explained as she drew her obscenely large knife and began to dress the creature. “The heart is located here,” she added, placing the tip of her blade beside a bloody incision that had likely been the killing blow. “One needs only to slide the blade beneath the ribs and push upward. Getting near can be difficult, but for an Araxie, going unseen is a way of life.”

“Hold up,” he added, rising to his feet. “Let me take a look at this thing before you butcher it. I’ve never seen one up close before.”

“Very well,” she replied, drawing her knife back.

Cal ran a hand along the alien’s flank, finding the skin smooth and slick, cold to the touch. He’d handled frogs and salamanders on Earth, and it had a similar texture, albeit while being the size of a small deer. Pressing his fingers deeper into its joints, he was able to identify the three-way pelvis that he had seen in the UAS files. They had done extensive studies on the animals, as the Araxie caught them frequently, but seeing it first-hand was a very different experience.

The feet on its lower limbs had three stubby toes, and examining the forward upper limb, he could see how that middle toe had turned into a large scoop while the outer pair had atrophied. The rear limb was the most fascinating, Cal pulling apart the long fingers to expose the webbed, patterned skin that was stretched between them. Its trio of eyes were dark, lacking any pupils or sclera, its ears made from thin membranes of skin. The mouth was incredible, with three beak-like formations that intersected like scissors, adapted for scything through tough plant matter.

“What a paltry campfire,” Murzka muttered as she noticed his stove.

“It’s not really a campfire,” he replied. “I’m just boiling some water for tea.”

“You told me that we were making camp, so I assumed that you would have a suitable fire ready for me when I returned. We will need a larger one if we are to cook my catch.”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he chuckled. “I guess this is why you’re able to travel with such light rations – you intend to catch most of your calories.”

“What are you wearing on your face?” she asked with a gesture to his goggles.

“Your goggles protect you from the sunlight, but mine let me see in the dark as you do.”

“Humans never cease to surprise me with their strange inventions,” she muttered as she walked off to the edge of the jungle. She returned some minutes later with an armful of branches and sticks, finding a clear area of forest floor to set them down. She created a kind of raft made of stacked sticks to elevate her fire above the wet ground and give it room to breathe. Next, she set upon one of the sticks with her knife, cutting into it and creating feathered strips to use as kindling.

“I don’t fancy your chances in these conditions,” Cal said. “This is about the wettest and most humid environment that I’ve ever worked in, and that includes the Amazonian and Scottish rainforests on Earth. I have some flammable gel packets in my kit.”

“You humans rely on technology too much,” she scoffed as she started on another stick. “And what if you were to find yourself without these flammable gel packets? What if you had no fuel for your stove? Observe – I cut away the wet outer layers to expose the dry wood beneath.”

“That’s called feathering,” Cal replied. “I know a little bushcraft.”

“Any good scout will carry dry kindling with her, but this technique will work in any circumstance,” she explained. Cal made a point of indulging her, happy that she was engaging with him for once. He watched as she produced a flint firestarter from one of her pouches and struck it with the edge of her steel knife, sending showers of sparks into the newly exposed dry wood. The kindling quickly caught, and she shielded it with her hands, blowing on it as she lowered it to the little pile of twigs that she had arranged. She nurtured the flames, gradually adding more wood until the little blaze began to resemble a proper campfire. It was smokey, but even damp wood burned if sufficient heat was applied.

“It must be strange for you,” Cal began as she started to prepare the animal for cooking, slicing away the striped skin with her knife like she was cleaning a fish. “When your people made first contact, your culture must have been at an early iron-age level of technology. After just a few short years, you’re colonizing another planet. How do you deal with that kind of culture shock?”

“We were exposed to human technology gradually,” she explained as she used her knife with all the skill of a seasoned chef. “The Rask joined the Coalition, and in doing so, gained access to alien weaponry. They grew bold and used their technology to raid our territory. We captured much of it over the years – rifles, trucks, armor. It was only when our situation became truly dire that we used a seized radio to contact the Coalition directly.”

“It was more that you were forced out of hiding, then,” Cal mused.

“Humans upset the balance of power on Borealis,” she continued, slicing away the mossgrazer’s meat a little more aggressively. “They armed our enemies and compelled us to make ourselves known as a means to survive. The humans also destroyed our enemies,” she added, glancing up at him with her shining eyes. “The Rask were brought low during the rebellion, and the Araxie are safer than they have ever been. You may not be a people of great foresight, but you are a people of law, and you do not abide treachery.”

“Thanks, I guess. Is that why you decided to come to EE-4?”

She paused for a moment, lost in thought as she watched the flames.

“There is a bird in our native territory,” she began, taking some of the pieces of pale meat and skewering them on a sharpened stick. “It builds nests high in the trees where it lays its eggs. When the young hatch, the mother nurtures and protects them, giving them warmth and safety. She brings them food and provides everything that they need.”

She paused her story, passing him the stick and gesturing for him to hold it over the fire, Kevin’s eyes tracking it hungrily.

“When the season is right, the mother bird pushes her beloved children out of the nest, some of which fall to their deaths. Why would a loving mother do such a thing?”

Cal realized that she was waiting for him to reply, considering for a moment.

“I suppose because they have to learn to fly, and if they can’t fly, they won’t be able to survive on their own. Staying in the nest is as good as a death sentence.”

“A wise answer,” she replied, giving him a rare glance of approval. “There comes a time when even a beloved, pampered child must learn to survive on their own. They must be strong enough to fly and to hunt, and they must leave their nest.”

“So, you see the Araxie as being like these baby birds?” Cal asked.

“We grow by confronting and overcoming hardship,” she explained, cutting away more meat from the carcass. “If a hatchling fears to leave the nest, it will never reach its potential – it will never soar over the jungle as is its birthright. If we Araxie stay hidden in our territory, we will never achieve our full potential.”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at things,” Cal said, rotating the meat. “You’re saying that expansion is a necessary stage of development for your race?”

“As it was for yours,” she replied. “Had you remained on your Earth, you would not be what you are today. You have faced many challenges, and they have made your people strong.”

“That’s true enough.”

“The harsh mother raises disciplined children, as the Equatorials say,” Murzka continued as she handed him another skewer. “We Borealans see the planet as being our mother. She raises us, provides us with what we need to survive, and sometimes punishes our hubris.”

“Is that a ... spiritual belief?” Cal asked. “I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be taken literally or if it’s more of a creation myth. Sounds a little like the Gaia theory – where a planet is attributed a soul.”

“Just because something is a myth, that does not make it untrue,” she replied with a chiding wag of her finger. “All living things are spawned from the planet. Does that not make it our mother in a sense?”

“When you put it like that, I suppose it’s reasonable,” he conceded.

“Take the story of how the stars came to be,” she continued as she impaled a much larger steak and began to roast it over the licking flames. “The nights were long and dark, and the Araxie people could not see as we do now. The first Patriarch took his bow and let fly an arrow which pierced the firmament, letting a twinkle of light shine through. Before morning came, he had pierced countless holes in the sky, providing enough light that the Araxie could conquer the darkness next it came.”

“That one is probably not meant to be taken literally, I’m assuming.”

“But does it not hold truth?” she pressed. “We know that there is no firmament covering the sky, and that those points of light are balls of flame, but are we not still loosing arrows at the stars in a manner of speaking?”

“Space travel is a little more complicated than that, but I think I get what you’re trying to say,” Cal replied. “Myths and legends can still be relevant, even if they’re not literally true. Your people seem to value stories based on what I saw in that tapestry.”

“It is how we record our history,” she replied. “How we entertain one another when we are not occupied with more important tasks.”

“Campfire stories!” Cal realized.

“Does that have some special meaning to you?” Murzka asked, raising an eyebrow at his sudden enthusiasm.

“I’ve just figured out that we share a cultural practice,” he explained. “Have you ever heard of a polecat?”

“It came within an inch of gutting me with its claws,” Cal said, pausing to take a bite of the mossgrazer meat. It wasn’t bad roasted – kind of tasted like chicken. “If Cass hadn’t been so quick on the draw, I might have been looking at an emergency medivac.”

“They sound like fearsome creatures,” Murzka replied. “Bold, too, to take on so many adversaries at once.”

“Check it out,” he added, reaching beneath his shirt. He produced a necklace, the string holding up a pendant fashioned from an ivory tooth fragment. “This came from one of the polecats I brought down during the attack. It’s just a piece of a larger saber tooth – it would have been too big otherwise. You can feel the serrated edge, though.”

“A trophy?” Murzka mused, running a thumb pad along the tooth as he held it out to her.

“The polecats haven’t really had time to develop any innate fear of humans,” Cal explained as he took a sip of his tea. “I’m sure the same is true for the backstabbers here. It’s what makes encountering new predators so dangerous. The wolves of Earth, for example, are very shy of humans due to hundreds of thousands of years of coexistence. They’ll avoid us if they can.”

“A fine story,” Murzka said, finishing off the last piece of meat from the all-but-stripped carcass. “I trust that it has not been embellished, considering that you were almost slain.”

“I dunno about slain, but I’d certainly have some impressive scars to show off,” he chuckled. “I might make it sound like my job is dealing with dangerous animals, but it really isn’t. If you’re studying and cataloging ecosystems, it’s kind of inevitable, though. Predators are a hugely important component of the food chain. Introducing them to an environment can even change the course of rivers.”

Murzka noticed that Kevin was still watching the dead mossgrazer, long strands of drool hanging from his jaws.

“Your hound may have its fill of the carcass if you wish it,” she said. “We have not the time to smoke and salt what remains, and it is better than letting it go to waste.”

“Thanks,” Cal replied. “Go on, Kev,” he added with a nod to the dog. “Treat.”

Kevin bounded past them and set upon the dead mossgrazer, giving it a thorough sniff before digging in, the loud sound of him eating filling the air.

“He’ll pack away pretty much all of it, save for maybe some of the bones,” Cal explained as Murzka gave him an expression that suggested she might already be regretting her decision. “Where are you sleeping, by the way? Do you have a tarp stashed away in one of those pouches?”

“I prefer to sleep in the trees,” she replied, providing no further explanation of what that might look like.