Chapter 17: Marriage

Two days later...

Time: February 16, 9570 2:40 AM UCT

After a day and a half of cloudy, blustery weather, the skies rapidly cleared but the gusty winds continued, and Basel and Eliana decided to continue their break from completing the grid search to the north. Instead they flew southeast at the break of dawn and were planning to spend their entire seven-hour window of daylight making random magnified visual observations along the length of the great lake-filled valley that used to the ancient border between Sweden and Finland. Their plan was cut short less than a half-hour into the flight.

"I see it too," Eliana called out as she banked the CAT to return to the center of a large frozen lake. "Reducing speed..." They were soon hovering at 2400 meters above sea-level and two kilometers above the center of the lake. "I'm logging our position at 41 km east and 44 km south of the station, time is 3:09 AM." She joined Basel in staring at the visual display from the underside of the fuselage. "Any guesses what that is?"

"Looks like some sort of puddle, maybe about a meter in diameter... Look at the edges. Is that puddle lying in some sort of carved depression?"

Eliana nodded. "Yeah, with all the side lighting, it does look that way, doesn't it?" There was a short pause. "Definitely worth investigating. How about I land two hundred meters to the south and then we'll drive up to it?"

A short time later they were staring the puddle from four meters away. Basel was already activating the remotes. "How big a sample do you want?"

Eliana nodded and considered. The brisk winds had blown the lake surface down to bare ice. There was an almost circular carved depression before them, and about 3 cm down the depression was filled with what looked like fresh frozen blood. On top of the blood were approximately fifty black diamond shaped objects, about 2 cm by 3 cm. By the way they rippled in the wind, Eliana thought of them as small cut-out pieces of black paper with one or two of their four edges frozen into the blood.

She turned to Basel. "How about a quarter of the puddle? Be sure to get a good sample of the black diamonds."

"Right..." It turned out the puddle of frozen blood was about 1 cm thick. Basel carefully cracked it and then lifted a rough quarter-circle with a good sample of the black diamonds into the storage bay. "Eli, I'm estimating about eight liters of blood total. This could easily have come from one bled hippo..." He tucked the arms back into the CAT. "Remotes are secure."

Eliana nodded and sighed. "Anything else to do here?"

"Maybe. Should we incinerate what we don't take?"

"Ah, that's an interesting question." She thought for a moment. "I'd rather not reveal the CAT's claws if we don't have to. Why don't we collect everything and incinerate the extra at the station?"

Basel nodded and began to extend the remotes again. "Sensing any watching eyes?" he asked as he guided the CAT's arms.

Eliana was quiet for a moment, then let out a slow breath and shook her head no. The return trip home was quiet and uneventful. They placed their sample in a sealed observation chamber, keeping them at the same temperature at which they were found.

Two hours later...

"Well, if you had to guess Basel, alive or not alive?"

"Now? This stuff can't possibly be alive. Look at the chemical spectrums. If these specimens weren't contained, the stench would be vile, maybe even dangerous."

"But you think it once was alive?"

"Well..." Basel thought for a long moment. "I'd have to say yes, it's organic. Nothing like an Earth based life-form though. The closest I could extrapolate would be to call these things the decayed leaves of an alcohol-based plant."

"Plant leaves?"

"Well, no," Basel whined. "Not a plant, not in the Earth based sense of the word. It doesn't even have DNA, and least not based on the same amino acids we use. I think this might be an alcohol-based life-form, rather than a water-based life-form. It's so badly decayed, it's difficult to tell. The leaves have a vague celluloid structure, but... Oh heck Eli, they can't be leaves."

"Why not?"

"The decay is so bad I can barely make this out, but there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest a stem direction. It's all self-contained..." Basel frowned at the black sample and looked as if he were going to continue, but then stopped and just frowned instead. "It's so incredibly decayed, right down to the core. How could any life survive like this?"

"What do you mean? The leaves are dead, aren't they?"

"Yeah, most definitely... I'm not sure what I mean... It's almost as if, well, imagine if you died, someone could still sample your DNA. I don't think that's possible here. The decay is that deep."

Eliana stared at their sample. "Excrement is a very disorganized material. Could this be the creature's shit?"

Basel smiled. "Two dimensional shit from a two-dimensional creature?"

"Sure, why not? And maybe alcohol-based shit decomposes at very low temperatures. We know the creature is active and the infrareds are picking up absolutely nothing. Its body temperature seems to be as cold as the environment."

Basel looked skeptical. "I don't know Eli. The creature is alive and active outside, yet these black flaps have broken down in the same temperatures. It doesn't make any sense." He gestured at the black diamond-shaped flaps. "These can't be leaves! You think they're shit? But the celluloid structures are so global, one complex mask over the entire diamond. They seem more like..." The words just wouldn't come.

Eliana said after a while, "Do you think the creature eats blood?"

A long pause. "The idea seems absurd at first, doesn't it? We're such different life-forms."

Eliana sighed. "And yet, a fungus is a very different life-form than us, and we can eat mushrooms, and fungi can thrive on our decomposing bodies."

Basel nodded and shuddered. "Somehow I got a vague impression of the puddle as a feeding pool. I don't know why." He frowned. Somehow a feeding puddle sounded close to but not quite the right explanation.

"Yes. Why else do it?" Eliana turned to Basel and they stared at each other in silence. The issue was bothering both of them, but neither could verbalize their uneasiness.

They returned to their analysis and spent several more hours running diagnostics without finding new insights. Around 9 AM they lowered and sealed everything in a frozen vault on Level-C and went back to the main station for a lunch break.

They decided to dine in the Observation dome and enjoy the last of the day's sunlight. At 9:40 AM, the sun was at azimuth 230 on the horizon and just a moment from setting when Eliana choked on her drink and almost vomited. She put her glass down and coughed.

"Eli, you okay?!"

She coughed again but nodded yes. "We're being watched, right now. The sensation just hit me, very strong." She gave a final cough. "Try to act casual."

"Okay. How about we take a leisurely stroll around the promenade?"

Eliana looked at him and blinked her eyes. "Oh! Yes, very good idea." They held hands and slowly walked the perimeter of the circular dome, admiring the twilight view and chatting with each other as they slowly made the circuit. The light started to fade rapidly as the gusty winds rolled in thick bands of dark clouds, blanketing the waxing half moon in the southeastern sky.

Eliana sighed as she and Basel stared out through the clear walls of the dome. "I'm not sure, but I think it was from the southeast. The light is fading and I'm losing my visual cues. I think the creature might have moved off."

"To the southeast again?"

She nodded. "Yes, somehow I think you're right, to the southeast."

"Well, that's the direction it took when we hit it with the scanner two days ago."

Eliana nodded thoughtfully.

Basel wrapped his arm around her waist and continued. "Which I think makes it even more important we continue our scanning to the north as soon as possible."

Eliana turned to him with a bright smile on her face. She gave him a quick kiss. "My clever husband! You're thinking the same thing I'm thinking, aren't you?"

"Decoys!" answered Basel. "Targets! All our sightings have been to the southeast. The creature badly overplayed its hand today, leaving us the... well, that blood puddle in the center of a bare-ice lake. I can't imagine a more conspicuous spot."

Eliana nodded and stared at the dark clouds of the local evening. "It looks as if another bit of nasty weather is moving in. Our first good day to scan though, I think we're going to find the impact crater in the upper third of our grid." She gestured with her eyebrows playfully. "Pity we didn't start the search there and work our way south."

Basel nodded. A moment later they turned the Observation dome opaque and headed back to Level-B.

The next day...

Time: February 17, 9570 3:50 PM UCT

"Game and match," laughed Basel. "Wow, I haven't played backgammon since I was a teenager. I had forgotten how much fun the game is."

"Neither have I," said Eliana. "And I agree, and interesting and unusual game. And the old saying rings true, good rolling beats good strategy."

Basel pretended mock offense. "What do you mean?! My play was masterful!"

"Oh yes Basel! You accept a marginal double, and then four rolls of high doubles on the run-off! The world's best players would be in awe of your skill!"

"It's all in the wrist motion as you roll. Someday I'll show you my secret."

"Uh huh." They both burst out laughing. Eliana got up and stretched and then gestured to her bedroom with her head, batting her eyes playfully and with a hint of a question.

Basel heart felt it skipped a beat. They had been sleeping in his room ever since the night after finding the slaughtered hippo. This was the first time Eliana had asked him to sleep in her room. He nodded his head as he gazed at her, a hopeful smile on his face.