Chapter 2

The computer aboard the lifeboat had reached a statistical quandary. Nearing the end of its main power, only two planetary bodies were within reach. The first, a solar system with a dry planet with a somewhat breathable atmosphere and a small research team with rescue equipment; the data was two centuries old. The other solar system was not found in the databanks. The atmosphere on one of its planets appeared more breathable and the presence of flora and fauna were confirmed. No human habitation meant little likelihood of rescue. With only enough power to reach one of the two systems and supplies for the occupant running low despite conservation measures, the computer had to choose between two statistically bad choices. The random number generator program chose the second planet and the steering jets engaged.

Pyotr arose into a semi-state of consciousness. He knew he was lying down on his stomach. He also realized that he had a tube shoved up his butt and it was rather uncomfortable. He tried to breath but was stopped abruptly by another tube that had been thrust down his gullet. Then he felt the hypodermic needle in his posterior.

Every “For Your Information” vid he could remember about deploying on a new planet featured a long lecture on the acclimation injections everyone endured before they stepped onto an alien planet. One shot was expected; two was bad luck. Three injections were cause for serious concern and four were just plain scary. He felt a second jab, then a third. He wanted to scream in pain as the fourth slammed into his upper thigh. He slipped back into blackness.

The alarm clock was driving him buggy. He reached out with his arm to bash the annoying device and found only empty space. He opened his eyes and stared in bewilderment: he was not at home.

He attempted to roll over and felt entirely too strange all over. His mouth was raw and his lips were dry and cracked. His rectum positively ached and his butt felt swollen and sore. Then again, everything felt swollen and all of his joints ached. Absently Pyotr brushed his bangs out of his eyes. He made it onto his back and felt something missing; something was truly wrong.

Pyotr lifted his head and stared straight down his body to his toes. He looked at his toes with great curiosity as if he had not seen them in a very long time. Something tickled his memory and traveled down his spine as he wiggled his pigglies to confirm that all was well at the other end. Then the realization struck him thunderously: he could actually see his toes, his long lost friends.

The fat was gone; the bane of his life and his existence had melted away. He perched himself on his elbows to view the nigh ecclesiastical miracle. Even the skin was taut; none of that unsightly skin sag that accompanied the rapid loss of weight. Great was the gift of the gods!

Then the last conscious event of his waking life slammed down upon all of his gleeful thoughts and he felt the panic rising in his vanished gut. This was no gift but the last desperate measures of a lifeboat to save a man’s life. The gift was just a byproduct of a long and terrible curse.

With a sigh Pyotr turned where he sat and looked to the small porthole, barely the size of his fist. The window was dark, which meant deep space. Pyotr was not ready to give up having just awakened though. He arose from bed and stood at the window. Embedded in the frame was a ridged dial and he began to spin it with his thumb. The darkness in the window gave way as the opacity of the window decreased and soon Pyotr could see sunlight and an atmosphere.

Then it dawned on him that he was standing up and that up was up and down was down; he was standing in gravity – duh. Whatever illusions he had of hero adventure and the like dissipated in an instant. He was still Kaminitzky AC-05 and now he was on a strange planet after a dreadful trip on a spaceship’s lifeboat. Accountants did not slay dragons and bed winsome beauties; they barely registered on the vid screen. Pyotr had witnessed what happened to his ilk countless times in the movies. Every action movie has the same repetitious scene where the hero rushes through the outer room taking out the unsuspecting clerk in about a half second before moving to the next room where the real action takes place. The lives of clerks merit a half second vid clip at best and apparently Pyotr had just had his.

Staring out of the little porthole, he concluded that he had landed on a strange planet. He remembered waking for a moment, enduring four injections, and decided to modify his assessment. He was on a bad, strange planet.

Rustling around the tiny cabin, he found rugged fatigues that were too big on him although he was too frightened to really appreciate the novelty of swimming in too much fabric. The boots were too large but he felt another ridged dial on the back of each heel and the things shrunk down to size. Outfitted at last, he turned to the exit.

On the door was a list of do’s and don’ts. Number 1 read: “Do stay with the capsule; the beacon will summon rescue responders.” He shrugged and prayed that the written message, printed at a government printing bureau located light years away, probably decades if not a century ago, was prophetic. Knowing what he knew about bureaucrats, he guessed his prayer was pretty weak.

Pyotr rotated the wheel and released the door locks. With a deep breath of anticipation, he pushed open the door and drank in the first draught of fresh air, pulling it deep into his lungs. ‘If the air was going to kill you,’ he reasoned, ‘you might as well get it over with quick.’ He sneezed and then sneezed again. He stepped out into the heat and high humidity, immediately feeling the pangs of an impending sinus headache between his eyes.

He ignored the bodily complaints as he surveyed his immediate vicinity. He had landed on a broad plain that stretched out in all directions. The immediate area was burned black by the descent of the lifeboat capsule to the ground, for which he was intensely grateful. The bushes and grasses outside the burn circle had a distinctly thorny and sharp look to them; all of the trees were rather low. On closer inspection, the flora looked downright nasty with a particular flair for tearing into flesh and ripping out chunks of it. He clamped down on his imagination.

The sun was a little less yellow and a bit greener than his eyes were used to seeing. However the sky was a healthy blue and the few clouds in the distance looked white and normal. As Pyotr glanced at the horizon, he listened with his ears for the first time, and heard the sounds of insects buzzing, hopping and chirping away. Birds, he guessed they were birds, twittered in the distance. He stood listening for a long time, wondering what he should be doing next. When he heard something moving in the bushes not too far off, he elected to return to the capsule and its relative safety.

He checked the supplies in the little compartment and sorted out just how long he could survive without outside help, maybe ten days. He categorized every foodstuff, placing each day’s ration onto a square on the improvised grid he drew in the lifeboat. He did find a hat and unscented hand cream, wondering what frickin’ moron substituted hand cream for whatever more important item he needed. He squeezed his eyes in psychic pain when he figured out it had to have been an AC just like him who responded to the need to keep the cost at a certain threshold. He was going to die because of the need to maintain a cost threshold in a drab government building in the middle of bustling urban center of a central planet.

He went about the business of trying to survive.

Day by day, Pyotr got a little braver in his explorations. His first goal was to reach one of the native plants that he had named “Broomhandle.” In the midst of its thick fleshly leaves which were green with purple veins, a thin wooden trunk emerged pointing straight skyward. On the top of the wooden pole, pink flowers burst into display for insects to pollinate, out of the reach of ground trotting herbivores.

His fatigues were festooned with pulls, rips, and small tears from all sorts of plants. He used a long crooked stick to check the undergrowth and the thick interiors of dark plants for creatures. He had chased off his fair share of reptilian like lizards and snakes, which made him absolutely squeamish. A few small rodents with tails also made the mad dash to avoid his probe. All of them showed teeth. Nonetheless, by the fourth day he had cleared a path to the closest Broomhandle. By the middle of the day he had managed to dig around the plant with his handy-dandy military issue rescue ready shovel. The sweat poured off of him and his daily allotment of water was already down by three quarters. Even so he persisted and brought the Broomstick down. With a final chop of the shovel, the main root cleaved and gave. Like a triumphant warrior, he dragged his prize back to his camp.