Chapter 7: Ghosts

“Nice to get out on our own for a little while, huh?” Cal asked as he stalked through the dense undergrowth. “I wonder what the girls are talking about in our absence? They seem to get along pretty well, considering how little they must have in common.”

He had been walking for maybe an hour, getting some good distance from the camp, and the sun was starting to dip low in the sky. Visibility wasn’t poor enough that he needed his goggles yet, but he had them with him just in case.

“I’m not returning empty-handed. I don’t think Murzka believes we’re even capable of surviving out here on our own, even after the polecat story. We’ve been in much more dangerous situations than this, right? Maybe if we bring back a nice bug buck – assuming mossgrazers have bucks – she’ll come around and see that we’re not useless.”

He paused beneath a gap in the canopy, pulling up his phone and seeing if he could connect to the survey ship’s data link. It was a weak signal, but it let him know that he hadn’t gotten turned around. The camp was directly Northeast of his present position.

“Even without the GPS, I just have to put the mountains to my left,” he muttered to himself. “It’s not that hard. What, does she think I can’t do basic orienteering?”

Kevin dropped his nose to the ground and began to sniff intently, Cal pausing.

“What is it, boy? You pick up a scent?”

The dog knew well the scent of mossgrazers now after having his entire head buried inside one’s body cavity. As Kevin led him through the ferns, roving back and forth, Cal kept his eyes open for more signs of activity. He soon found what he was looking for, seeing patches of moss that had been scraped off the tree trunks, leaving those telltale scratch marks. He stopped beside one, running his fingers through the grooves in the wood.

“These look pretty fresh,” he mused. “Whatever made them can’t be far off. Quietly, Kev.”

Kevin lowered his posture a little, beginning to stalk through the undergrowth, Cal doing his best to avoid creating too much noise as he followed with his rifle at the ready. After maybe ten minutes, Kevin stopped, lying down in the ferns as he had been trained to do when he got eyes on an animal. Cal knelt at his side, peering through the trees and the mist to see the six-limbed outline of a mossgrazer at the limits of his vision – maybe sixty feet away. It was leaning up against one of the trees, feeding on the moss with its scoop, using the modified claw to scrape off handfuls and bring them down to its three-way jaws.

“Easy,” Cal whispered, shouldering his rifle and taking aim through the scope. Remembering what Murzka had said about pushing beneath the ribs to reach the heart, he zeroed his sights on that same area, exhaling as he prepared to take the shot.

Just as Cal was about to squeeze the trigger, Kevin turned his head, his ears flicking as he tracked something new. Cal waited, keeping as still as a statue as he listened, but he couldn’t hear anything other than the gentle swaying of branches and the rustling of leaves in the breeze. Nor did the mossgrazer seem at all perturbed, continuing its methodical feeding. He knew better than to ignore Kevin’s instincts, however.

As he waited, even his breath a whisper, he saw a shimmer on the tree trunk just above the mossgrazer. There was something there, like a silhouette glimpsed through a pane of frosted glass or a cluster of stuck pixels on a monitor. The shape was impossible to resolve – his eyes couldn’t find anywhere to focus – but it was casting a very tangible shadow on the moss beneath it.

The shape dropped, and there was a scuffle, the mossgrazer tangling with the ghost in a blur of thrashing limbs and flying fern fronds. Cal placed a hand on Kevin’s flank, warning the excited dog to stay still, the spines on his back rising in anticipation.

The mossgrazer lifted its head to the canopy and opened its three beaks, letting out one last bray as the shimmering shadow subdued it, pinning it to the forest floor. There was some kind of violent strike, blood splattering the nearby leaves, then the prey lay still. Before Cal’s eyes, the shimmer began to fade, a tangible animal coming into clear focus.

It was a little larger than the mossgrazer, maybe two meters and change from nose to tail, and a little under half that at the shoulder. Its body was lean and muscular, with a slender build that reminded Cal of a big cat, its weight putting it in the range of something like a leopard or a large puma. Like its quarry, it had that same trilateral body plan, its four lower limbs forming short legs tipped with hooked claws for climbing and grappling.

The skull was longer than that of the mossgrazer, and its three beaks were serrated, creating a wicked implement that resembled the teeth of a saw. The three beady eyes were more forward-facing, probably giving it binocular – or trinocular – vision. If that wasn’t evidence enough of its predatory nature, the limb that rose up from between its shoulders was long and sinewy, the claws adapted into a long blade with a cruelly sharp point. It resembled a knife made of bone, poising there like the tail of a scorpion preparing to strike, still dripping with fresh blood. The rear limb was more like the legs, featuring grasping claws that Cal guessed might help it climb or hang from the branches like the tail of a lemur. Its own tail was fairly short, perhaps only used for balance.

Its skin was the most mesmerizing feature. While the mossgrazer had slick, smooth skin patterned with green stripes, this creature’s hide was covered in innumerable tiny spots. He thought they might be scales at first, but the way that they shifted and changed hue to match the foliage surrounding them revealed their true nature. They must be chromatophores, like those found on cuttlefish or octopi, giving the creature the uncanny ability to blend into its environment. At rest, it was a dull reddish-brown color. He didn’t need to wonder about its name. It was obvious that this was one of the fabled backstabbers described by the Araxie. No wonder they were so elusive – they could turn practically invisible.

More cautiously now, Cal watched as the backstabber employed that wicked blade on its third arm once more, driving it into the mossgrazer’s ribs like the tip of a spear. Crouching over its kill protectively, it turned its cone-shaped head to scan its surroundings, perhaps aware that it was being watched. Three ears like little flaps of skin flared out, forming the petals of a deadly flower, its trio of mandibles parting in a low hiss.

Cal wasn’t sure what to do. This was his first sighting of the predator, and a rare one at that. He could kill as many mossgrazers as he could eat, but this animal was likely at the top of its food chain, making it a lynchpin of the ecosystem. He didn’t want to shoot it any more than he would want to shoot a Siberian tiger or an African lion. Could he scare it away, or would a confrontation prompt it to attack? He didn’t know anything about its behavior or threat response – how territorial it might be. Backing away without being seen wasn’t an option now.

Very slowly, he reached for the silencer on the end of his rifle and began to unscrew it, then aimed the naked muzzle. A loud crack echoed through the valley, splinters flying as the round impacted the trunk a couple of feet above where the backstabber was standing. It let out a rattling hiss, then bounded away with surprising speed, the muscles beneath its skin rippling before they faded beneath its shimmering camouflage.

Gripping Kevin by the collar to prevent the excited dog from giving chase, Cal rose to his feet, slowly making his way closer to the dead mossgrazer. Only when he was certain that the dog was more interested in the kill than the pursuit did he release Kevin, the hound rushing over to have a thorough sniff around the area.

“Get his scent, Kev,” Cal said as he swept the trees with his rifle. “I guess this is something we have to watch out for now.”

Once he was fairly sure that the coast was clear, he shooed Kevin away from the carcass and slung it over his shoulder, turning back in the direction he had come.

“I heard your gunshot from here,” Murzka complained as Cal emerged from the forest at the edge of the camp. He had to strip off his goggles, the light from the flickering campfire blowing out the sensors. “I was led to believe that your weapon was quieter than mine.”

“Hey, you bagged one!” Poppy added as he dropped the limp mossgrazer onto the ground beside the flames with a thud. “See, Murzka? I told you he could do it.”

Kevin trotted over to Poppy to get some pets, wagging his tail as she used all four hands to scratch his head.

“Ye of little faith,” Cal grunted as he stood back up and stretched. “Technically, I didn’t shoot this guy.”

“What do you mean?” Poppy asked with a quizzical tilt of her head.

“Murzka,” he said, prompting her to check the carcass with a gesture. She rose from her seat on a jutting root and crouched over it, inspecting the animal closely.

“You took it down with a blade, just as I did?” she asked as she gave him a surprised glance. “There is an incision over the heart. No – two incisions.”

“I tracked this thing down and trained my sights on it,” Cal began as he leaned his rifle against a nearby root. “And then, I see this weird shape on the tree above it, right? I think to myself – are my eyes playing tricks on me? Is it the mist or the low light? Nah, it was a fucking backstabber. The thing was as long as I am tall – maybe more, and it dropped down on top of this mossgrazer like a falling stone. It dragged it down and shanked it before I even had time to process what I was seeing. That gunshot you heard was me scaring the damned thing away from the kill.”

“You actually saw a backstabber?” Poppy marveled, scooting a little closer to him on her root. “What did it look like?”

“At first, it didn’t look like anything,” he replied. “It was like a ghost. I could only see it because of the shadow that it was casting, and even then, it was Kevin who figured out something wasn’t right. Those things can camouflage themselves like chameleons – they’re practically invisible if you’re not already looking for them. Hell, we could have walked within ten feet of one on our way here, and we’d never know it.”

“You faced this creature?” Murzka pressed, the forward position of her ears suggesting that she was giving him her full attention now. “What is chameleon? In what manner did it make itself invisible?”

“You’ll love this,” he began. “There are species on Earth that use specialized pigmented cells called chromatophores, and through changing their reflectivity and minute muscle movements, they can use them to shift the color and patterning of their skin. This allows them to blend into their environment, like a form of natural camouflage. It’s a little like what you do with your cloak, but entirely organic.”

“A formidable ability,” Murzka replied, seeming more attentive than he had ever seen her. “There are predators on your Earth that have this trait?”

“Not exactly,” Cal said. “The animals that have chromatophores are usually quite small and inoffensive, at least to humans. This is the first time that I’ve encountered a large predator with this kind of adaptation.”

“So ... they can turn invisible?” Poppy asked as she glanced around at the trees warily. “That means they could be watching us right now, and we wouldn’t know it?”

“The one that I saw appeared as a kind of shimmer,” Cal explained, struggling to find the words to describe it. “It was almost like the way that heat makes the air ripple – a mirage. I only saw it because I was already looking for something out of place. Kevin picked up on it before I did.”

“The razorback was able to sense this creature?” Murzka asked, giving the dog a glance.

“His senses are keen, and he’s trained to be a tracker,” Cal confirmed with a nod. “This explains why the backstabbers are so seldom seen, and why they’ve been able to evade your people, Murzka. They’re perhaps not as rare as we assumed, just very good at hiding. Maybe the fence around the UAS camp was a good idea after all.”

“I do not know if I should be perturbed or exhilarated,” Murzka said as she turned her attention to the fresh mossgrazer, drawing her knife and starting to dress it. “This planet still holds many secrets and challenges.”

“I doubt we’ve even scratched the surface,” Cal scoffed. “In thousands of years of recorded history, humans never fully explored their rainforests. To this day, we’re still uncovering new species on a pretty routine basis.”

“Our home territory is also very dense and has yet to be fully mapped,” Murzka added, her skill with a blade leaving him staring again. “We have nothing like the backstabbers that I know of. I should like to hunt one of these creatures and bring it back to the settlement. No Araxie has done so before.”

“I dunno if I can condone trophy hunting,” Cal chided. “These animals are clearly high in the food chain, which means they could have a large impact on the ecosystem that exists beneath them. Depending on how territorial they are, they could have exclusive hunting grounds kilometers wide, and they could be responsible for controlling prey populations. That said, it would be nice to bring one back to the UAS for study. They’re fascinating animals.”

“What is trophy hunting?” Murzka asked, still occupied with gutting the mossgrazer.

“Killing a rare animal for sport or prestige,” Cal explained. “I know that you’re a hunter, and the Araxie are all about being the best in their field, but we shouldn’t kill these animals unless we come into direct conflict with them.”

“It is acceptable to kill mossgrazers?” Murzka asked, pausing her grisly task with her bloody knife in hand as she looked to him for approval.

“Yeah, there will be plenty of those,” he replied. “Maybe in the very long term, we might need to impose restrictions on hunting them, but I see no reason to believe that the current or near-future Araxie population will have any negative impact on their numbers.”

“This is not a problem that we Araxie have faced before,” she muttered, skewering a piece of pale meat on a sharpened stick. “We are a simple people, and we do not take more than we need.”

“Well, you say that now,” Cal replied. “At this point in time, you don’t really have the numbers or the industrial capacity to do any damage. I can’t really give you props for not doing something that was never possible in the first place. You’re in a unique position, though. You’ll be able to learn these lessons early and avoid the worst pitfalls that have caused so many problems in other places. You can skip over transitional technologies, and you can learn the best practices and adopt the best techniques from other species who have already tackled these hurdles successfully.”

“We’re helping too,” Poppy added.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Cal said with a gesture to the Worker. “Moving all of your industry and farming underground, where it can’t impact the jungle above, is something completely unique to Jarilans. You’ve been able to skip over fossil fuels and heavy industrialization entirely because fusion power is readily available, you have access to advanced building techniques and an off-world support system. It’s a question of policy now, not technology.”

“Then, we shall have to heed your advice,” Murzka said as she began to roast some of the meat. “That is your expertise, is it not?”

“That’s what it says on my badge,” he chuckled. “Figure of speech,” he added when she gave him a quizzical look.

“You realize that you are one of few who have glimpsed a backstabber?” she continued, handing him a skewer loaded up with meat. “Even among the Araxie, sightings are rare. It makes me better appreciate how the Rask used to view us before the most recent war.”

“How so?” he asked.

“They referred to us as shadows and ghosts. Their ancestors were repelled from our territory many times, and there grew among them a belief that it was haunted by evil spirits – that those who ventured there would be damned. It was only their new technology that emboldened them to try again.”

“I didn’t realize the conflict had been going on for that long,” Cal mused as he turned his skewer over the flames. “I can see how trying to fight Araxie on their home turf would create that kind of perception, though. Without Kevin, I’d never have any idea where you were. It spooks me sometimes, the way you just seem to ... appear.”

“I am not accustomed to being seen without choosing to expose myself,” she replied, giving him a sideways glance with those green eyes as they reflected the firelight. “You also spotted a backstabber before I did.”

“Like I said, it’s more of a Kevin thing,” he replied with a shrug.

“Perhaps I have not given you the respect that you deserve,” she continued as she brought one of the steaming steaks to her dark lips, Cal seeing a flash of her pearly fangs in the night. “You are chief among your people, after all. You alone were chosen to undertake this expedition. Had you a pack, you would surely be named Alpha.”

“How does that work, exactly?” he asked. He glanced at Poppy briefly, finding that she was smiling at him. Her words back in the village flashed through his mind, and he remembered what she had said about packs and the intimate relationship they shared. “Are you the Alpha of your pack?” he added, turning his attention back to Murzka.

“I am chief among hunters in the colony,” she replied proudly, sitting up a little straighter. “To be Alpha is to have one’s skills recognized and honored by one’s closest peers. I have trained under both Lozka and Roza, some of the most accomplished warriors and hunters of our territory. I was personally part of Roza’s pack for a time before I established my own. The Patriarch chose my pack to be sent here personally.”

“It’s very much a meritocracy, then?” Cal continued. “The best hunter leads the hunters, the best tailor leads the tailors, and so on?”

“There is a little more to it than that,” she admitted, pausing to chew her steak. “Popularity is certainly a contributing factor, and those who fail in their duties to care for their pack will not keep their title for long, but your assessment is otherwise accurate.”

“What if someone just isn’t good at anything?”

“Not all packs are so prestigious,” she began. “Only those highest in the village hierarchy have such strict requirements. Those of great skill and renown are honored, but more is expected of them, and greater responsibility is placed upon their shoulders. A pack of lower station can simply be formed from those who enjoy one another’s company and who share meals and beds, though they hold less sway in village politics. As Alpha of hunters and scouts, I am responsible for ensuring that there is enough game and enough pelts, and I may be assigned special duties such as this one. The Patriarch – or the Council, in our case – places great trust in me. It is not uncommon for an Alpha to identify those who show promise and teach them by bringing them into the pack for a time, as it was with Roza and I.”

“Kind of like an apprenticeship,” Cal mused. “You scout promising people and help them hone their skills so they can start their own packs one day.”

“It’s a little strange to me, because everyone of the same caste in the hive is equal,” Poppy added. “Drones fight, Pilots drive, and Workers labor. Sure, people can be given different tasks and different responsibilities depending on the circumstances, but everyone has about the same level of expertise and no more or less standing than anybody else. It sounds kind of tiring to constantly have to keep that up.”

“You said that you’re led by an Ambassador, though?” Cal asked.

“Yeah, but all Ambassadors are equal,” the little Worker replied. “They’re our political and leadership caste for when the Queen isn’t around.”

“Say I lead the ecologist pack,” Cal began, glancing between his two companions. “Theoretically, what does that look like? Is everyone else like ... my assistant?”

“Packmates devote themselves to their Alpha,” Murzka explained, chewing her meat. “They carry out their will and see to their needs. In return, the Alpha takes care of their needs. We must ensure that they are fed, sheltered, and content in their work. We must keep their skills sharp, like taking a whetstone to a knife.”

“Sounds kind of nice,” Cal sighed as he turned his eyes to the crackling campfire. “I’ve spent a lot of time working alone. Well, I was working with Kevin, and he’s not very good at holding conversations. On my last assignment, I was traveling with a large group of ranchers in a convoy – I lived with those guys for a whole year. I didn’t think I’d miss it so much.”

“It was like a pack?” Muzka asked curiously.

“In some ways,” Cal replied. “We had about twenty people living and working together in close proximity, but it was a little more platonic than packs sound. Every night, we’d park the trucks in a circle to protect us from the polecats, and we’d build a giant bonfire a hundred times the size of this one. We’d cook fresh beef and drink cold beers all night. Kevin has never eaten so well.”

“What about the ride on the liner?” Poppy asked. “Didn’t you make any new friends?”

“I don’t really count the people I met at the open bar as friends,” he replied. “The liner was heading deeper into the sphere, so I’ll never see any of them again. I had a few interesting conversations every now and then, but it was mostly tourists.”

“Your time working on Franklin sounds nice,” Poppy said. “My work crew in the hive was kind of similar. We’d spend all day excavating tunnels and installing water lines, and then in the evening, we’d head to the bar to hang out with the other castes and have our honey. At night, we’d all sleep together in the same chamber.”

“Are you eager to get back to them?” Cal asked, taking a bite of a piece of mossgrazer meat.

“I haven’t really been away long enough to miss them yet,” she replied. “It’s only been a few days. If I was away from the hive for as long as you’ve been away from Franklin, I think I would pine for it. Right now, though? I’m having a great time,” she said with a smile, kicking her little hoof-like feet from her seat on the root beside him. “I get to go out under the stars and run around with the Endos.”

“You said you could do a different job if you wanted to, though?” Cal asked.

“Yeah, but I like my work,” she replied. “This is a nice change of pace, is all. I got chosen by the Ambassador to be a sherpa, and I get to carry the bags,” she continued proudly.

“You are chief among laborers, as are Briggs and I in our respective work?” Muzka asked.

“I don’t think so,” she replied with a smirk. “I was probably chosen at random. I’m not any better or worse than any of my sisters. Still, I’m here, and they’re not.”

“A strange thing, to be so... uniform,” the Araxie mused as she took a bite of a steak.

“We’re made for a purpose,” Poppy continued with an enthusiastic nod that set her antennae waving. “Nobody is hatched who isn’t needed, and every Jarilan has a place in the hive. Some Endos find that concept disconcerting, as though they don’t like the idea of their destiny being predetermined, but knowing that you’re wanted and that you have a reason to exist is comforting. I can’t imagine spending upwards of twenty years trying to figure out what I want to do and who I want to be.”

“It does sound rather nice, as long as you’re not locked in,” Cal added. “A lot of people struggle with finding purpose.”

“Yeah – we’re not a hive mind. If I want to ask for some money and leave, I can.”

“Do you get paid?” Cal asked, pausing to set one of the self-heating rations cooking.

“Kinda,” she began. “The hive provides us with all of our basic necessities – food, shelter, and the like. We’re not paying for rent or groceries, and we don’t have utility bills, so there’s not much to buy. Currency is ... kind of a new concept for us. Endos insist on using it for everything, though, so the hive has ended up with quite the war chest. We can request money if we need it for some reason. Humans actually won’t let us work on infrastructure projects or in shipyards without receiving a salary – I think it’s illegal.”

“Yeah, UN labor laws,” Cal chuckled. “If you’re working for humans, they apply to you too.”

“It took us long enough to convince them that we didn’t want or need breaks. Imagine – stopping work just so you can hang around doing nothing for a while. Not very efficient.”

“Just wait until you hear about mandatory paid leave,” Cal added, wiggling his fingers and putting on a spooky voice. “There’s a ghost story for you – the Jarilan who was forced to go on vacation.”

“In that case, I’d just find something to take apart.”

“We, too, have found human behavior to be strange,” Murzka began as she plucked another steak from her skewer. “The Araxie take what we must from the jungle. Most of our needs are met through hunting and foraging. For the things that we cannot forage or make locally, we trade with other villages using coins of iron. It has been explained to me that humans use tokens that merely represent wealth that exists elsewhere.”

“Why iron?” Cal asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s not a very precious metal, so it seems a strange thing to use as your standard for currency. Not gold or silver?”

“It is not precious to you, perhaps,” Murzka replied. “To the Araxie people, iron is highly prized. The finest tools and weapons are smelted from iron that can only be collected from bogs, which are difficult to find in our home territory. A coin can be traded for items of equivalent value, or it can be smelted and used to forge new tools. An old tool can even be melted down into coins again, thus preserving its worth.”

“Interesting,” Cal mused. “It’s purely pragmatic, then. You’re essentially trading ingots as money. There must be no widespread mining in your territory, then. Human currency is ... kind of complicated,” he began, wondering where he should start. “You’re right in that our money mostly exists digitally, because it’s a lot easier to carry around a phone than a sack of coins, but the size of human space presents a problem. The sphere is almost two hundred light-years across, and there are dozens of colonies within it. FTL comms are expensive and have a pretty low capacity for data transfer, so there’s really no feasible way to keep thousands of banks and billions of accounts synced up in real time. If I have money on Franklin, I need to be able to bring it to EE-4, and stuffing my pack with banknotes isn’t realistic or advisable.”

“Not with the amount you can carry,” Poppy snickered.

“The only way it can really work is by having large, centralized servers on each colony that are owned by banking conglomerates with the funds to operate their own satellites. They can share data at set intervals and keep their accounts relatively up-to-date between planets. Everyone then has a little encrypted node on their device that acts as their wallet, which syncs their balance with their bank.”

“What happens when you’re out of contact with the network?” Poppy asked. “There’s no banking conglomerate here – we’ve been doing most of our trading in honey and vegetables.”

“Your local node tracks your balance and updates at the earliest opportunity,” Cal replied with a shrug. “It’s imperfect, and it can cause problems with overdrafts and the changing value of currency, but there’s no better solution. Most banks offer travel insurance as part of their contracts for that reason.”

“I see,” Poppy said. “So, if you’re away for a very long time, you run the risk of falling more and more out of sync.”

“Hence the insurance, yeah.”

“I cannot follow this conversation,” Murzka grumbled, stoking the fire with a branch and sending a swarm of glowing embers rising up into the air. “All this talk of imaginary coins and satellites. What use have we for such things when one can simply shoot a mossgrazer for meat? Your lives are too complicated...”

“You’re not wrong,” Cal conceded with a laugh. “Believe it or not, I prefer your way of doing things. It’s one of the reasons I chose this line of work. The Galactic economy has its perks, though,” he added as he fished a square of pizza out of its self-heating sleeve. “Perks like being able to ship pizza all the way from Earth,” he chimed, waving it so that its scent wafted in her direction.

Her resistance didn’t last long, and she reached out to take it from him, her sharp claws sinking into the crust. She took small bites as though wanting it to last as long as possible, savoring the alien flavors, the melting cheese pulling away in long strands. When she was done, she began to lick the grease from her fingers, Cal watching in awe as her tongue extended. It was long – even when accounting for her size, close to a foot of pink muscle coiling around her digits like a tentacle, the rough barbs on its upper side combing through her fur. She noticed that he was staring, and her green eyes locked with his for the briefest of moments before he quickly turned his gaze to the campfire.