The poor indigenous inhabitants of Dakota Prime never had a chance. Seventeen feet tall they were, the entirety of their bodies covered with stone-like blue scales, and nary a kind gesture was made between them, as far as anyone knew. Indeed, through our own oft-qualified judicial eyes at least, their barbaric nature was perhaps our greatest excuse to relieve them of their enviable planet. By that peculiar rationale they may have deserved it. And thus would we, on our own world, deserve the fate Wells once so eloquently described.
Yet when has mankind ever required a reason to fulfill his destiny? For he is the most cowardly of species, willing to exploit and obliterate those with lesse intellects for no othe reason than his ability to do so, and often for reasons more heinous still. This is my first-hand account of the moments leading up to the human invasion of Dakota Prime, on August 21, 2231: a date that forever shook the foundations of mankind's deep space exploration.
The afternoon was a warm one, pleasantly so. The light purple veins of a precious metallic substance, as it turned ou a similar element to zinc, reflected the sun's rays most intensely. The effect was a series of peculiar glints in the pale grey cliff walls of the mountainous arena; the surrounding areas were bathed in a kind of ethereal, barely visible purple hue. In places where the vein was faded or of more muted colour, the trace continued only by virtue of brilliant pronunciation on either side. Lines of mysterious Morse code sent through this marvellous new element in the rock.
I remember thinking of the billions of years it took for our own Earth to form, and how each and every molecule was a product of sometimes chaotic, mostly meticulous, always unique change. And how remarkably similar Dakota Prime was. Barely a few degrees awry (greater than Earth's) in both mean temperature and diameter; possessing the requisite composition of elements to sustain life, and most significant, in the vastness of space, a relative neighbour. This world had been a precious discovery.
So it was then, on my fourth scouting expedition for the independent mining contractor 'Ansen - De Maynes', that I first encountered the superior beings of this strange, terraqueous planet. My designated area of study extended four square miles across a vast grey plateau: ancient craters here and there suggested an extremely old volcanic plain, a magma overspill from the planet's past.
The geometric survey involved a team of five, of which I, Henry Forestall, was the least experienced. Our goal was to determine the most favourable site, in terms of the elemental composition, proximity to water, areas of scientific interest, and scope for exploration, for the first colony outpost on the northern continent. The process, despite its importance, was a painstaking one. The three weeks we had already spent on Dakota Prime had provided a teasing glimpse. That afternoon, however, I decided to wander a little further afield.
As my colleagues busied themselves about the eastern-most site we had shortlisted for study, I borrowed the rover and made my way west. The purple hue of the mountain appeared much more concentrated in that direction and in any event, we would otherwise not have been given the chance to explore an area of such rugged terrain. In terms of topography, it seemed much too unforgiving; outpost sites tended to be as accessible as we could permit.
Yet, I have always had a taste for adventure. That was one of the reasons I became a Deep Space Surveyer (or DESYR, as we are known) - to lay our foundations for habitation on new planets, to be among the first to leave footprints on new worlds. The notion was, and still is, a thrilling one.
The drive lasted approximately ten minutes before the gentle undulation took a more violent course. If it weren't for the robustness and sheer size (four feet in diameter, two-and-a-half feet solid) of the vehicle's tyres, my journey, and possibly my career, would have been grounded before I had traversed another hundred metres.
A chaotic bed of light-grey teeth jutted out in diagonal fashion, some of them incredibly sharp but most, at least, reaching the same height (around three feet) from the ground-rock. The rover was thus able to roll slowly across the pin-cushion, and after another ten minutes or so, I reached the base of the western mountains.
The peaks far above me, firmly out of reach, were perched on the shoulders of a muscular range I immediately determined as being dormant volcanic. The secrets within, only hinted at from a distance by the ethereal purple haze, were even more mysterious and enticing up close.
"The curse of Aladdin's Cave: look but don't touch," I remember thinking.
The climb was in every way a pleasant one. I neither used or required any of the crutches of technology to which we had become accustomed. Back on the rover I had left all manner of climbing gear and survival instruments - necessary in my line of work but not so, I convinced myself, for an afternoon hike. The ground underfoot was amazingly firm; I had expected a large constituent of loose rocks and scree build-up but instead found the slope to be solid and easily traversable. I was able to walk, rather than scramble, all the way to the ridge I had aimed for a half a mile above.
The ease of my ascent I accredited to some awe-inspiring weather phenomenon that must have taken place above the very ground I walked at some point in time, sweeping any orphan fragments of rock into the whim of a terrible wind - perhaps a tornado of continental proportions. And could we be sure such a thing would never happen again? What if we had chosen the playground for these swirling leviathans for our base of operations, and this was simply the off-season?
Suddenly, Dakota Prime seemed incredibly alien. The staggered trail of faint purple stretched back over my route like a V.I.P. staircase in the grey rock. On distant mountains, the brilliant sunlight reflected the element as luminous rosary beads across wild, unapologetic cliffs and other rock formations - a shining prayer in the colourless, barren wasteland all around. "What new place lies beyond the ridge?" I wondered.
The answer was unlike anything I had expected. Miles upon miles of lush, orange-red vegetation, a vast carpet upon the landscape. I say lush, but I have no idea whether the colour signified rich or dried out alien grass. One thing was for sure - THEY were certainly enjoying it. Thousands of blue figures, neither as light coloured as the oceanic turquoise sky or as dark as our own traditional Navy fatigues on Earth, grazed in gargantuan herds far below. Their exact proportions I was not able to correctly figure until later, but could tell they were enormous creatures from my approximate distance to the valley floor. My amazement was undiluted by the hundreds of light years I was from home. Quickly though, after the initial shock had subsided, two questions began throbbing inside my thoughts: why had we not been told about these indigenous life forms, and who had authorised our illegal survey mission?
It had long been forbidden for anyone to make themselves known, let alone build a settlement, on any planet populated by potentially intelligent life. Given that the phrase 'intelligent' can be interpreted any number of ways, ISPA (Inter-Stellar Space Administration) had drafted an exhaustive series of guidelines regulating our contact with alien species.
It was named the J.S. Protocol, after its presiding chairman, Jacob Sondheim, who died shortly after its implementation. In its broadest terms, the J.S. Protocol forbade interaction of any kind with any alien life form greater than microscopic size. Sondheim had argued that exploration was in itself an invasive act, and some liberties must be taken in order to learn. This would later be amended to exclude even those organisms, as have been found since, on other worlds - life forms with significant intellects in the guise of particles able to manipulate water, plants with a staggering problem-solving capacity and most alarming of all, a nexus of pure energy life forms roaming the debris rings of a recently explored system, whose secrets even now continue to deafen the annals of human science.
Our presence on Dakota Prime was a blatant violation of this ordinarily most revered of laws. What was I in the middle of? Was I too expendable in some underhanded corporate conspiracy? I was certain no mistake could have been made, due to the fact that planets are reconnoitered by satellite for months before surveys are ever green-lit. No, there had to be more to it - of that much I was sure.
The journey down was a tentative affair. Creeping in between boulders and formations that would obscure me from the vision of these creatures, I nevertheless fixed my eyes upon them at every opportunity, anxious to learn as much as possible in the time I could justify before heading back. Finally, atop a flat shelf overlooking the valley from some thirty metres above, I lay still to observe the strange, blue inhabitants of Dakota Prime.
A brute with more vicious appearance I have never found. Their limbs, numbering six, each had a powerful function. The two legs, though sharp and angular, reminded me of a rabbit's hind limbs, being able to steady the body while upright and also to provide great thrust when racing on all fours (or sixes). The middle pair of arms were by far the most flexible, half as long as the hind legs but with two pronounced digits at the end. These were used for shaping the clumps of grass, hewn by the last set of limbs, into easily digestible forms.
One would have to witness the action of these upper limbs to understand why four limbs were required for the beasts to feed. Imagine the tusks of an elephant, only muscular and with a joint half way down. The upper half was quite flexible but toughened by thick blue scales; the lower half was incredibly sharp and narrowed to a point at the end. This could be made rigid and become a taut instrument for either scything or combat.
This scything action was the first of the two I witnessed: a beautiful elliptical motion that jerked backwards to cut through the red stems and then glided up and over, between the gathering of grass by the lower arms, to start the cycle again. With thousands of them grazing by this same method, I guessed that entire valleys of vegetation might be consumed in a matter of days; they would likely migrate as the cycle of regrowth permitted, and perhaps the red grass of Dakota Prime grew at an exceptional rate.
Rather than dizzy myself flirting between hundreds of these creatures every time a new characteristic caught my eye, I decided to follow just one. A particularly large fellow, at least I assumed that was his sex (I could have been way off the mark) bolted from his pack and charged straight into a solitary creature ten metres to his right, for no apparent reason other than the poor loner must have had affrontery to dine alone and not invite the big brute along. Being levelled onto his back must have been the picnicker's comeuppance, and there was no retaliation on his part.
It was then that I was given my greatest opportunity to study the blue grazer in detail. As he reared up, perhaps in celebration, perhaps to knowingly bid me behold his magnificence, I saw a different side to these creatures. A more slender and wiry frame than an alligator; more muscular and imposing than a cockroach. The shape of these beasts was utterly unique. Neither insect or lizard, their stature bespoke a pride and dominance that we had only achieved on Earth by our reliance on technology. These were real. Nature's masters in symbiosis with all they surveyed. My purpose on Dakota Prime was an attack upon their every refined right of evolution. And as he lowered his swivelling, constantly twitching head to resume feeding, his myriad eyes glanced over my hiding place briefly before resting on the feast of red grass ahead of him.
A few metres behind, another grazer was impaled from the side and collapsed, motionless, on the ground. The attack was brutal and decisive. Obviously they knew how to inflict measured, mortal damage. But what struck me most about this encounter was the absence of sound from either creature, as if it was a completely natural act between kinsmen - perhaps a merciful gesture to relieve an ailing friend of his misery. Then I realised that amidst all of my musings and perceptions I had yet to hear a single noise from this great herd.
"Might they communicate in silence in the manner I do now - in thought - an extrasensory perception?" I proposed to myself.
Across the landscape, tribes of wavering blue were scattered like tidal pools on a great exposed coral reef - its red soon to be submerged until the waters receded once again. It seemed to me the grazers were everything humans are not - governed by instinct, roaming as one and in equilibrium with their natural habitat. My choice was made. I would do everything within my power to find out what was in store for the planet I had only now seen for the first time.
Speed was my necessity. No longer creeping in obscurity, I dashed from boulder to boulder, often struggling to keep my breath but determined not to rest.
Was a closer look even necessary? What if that hour was...?
And there I halted in mid-stride, not knowing where to look or hide. The roar was tremendous, rising like a rogue breaker hurtling toward the shore. From every direction it seemed to suffocate my senses, until finally it broke overhead and rattled the mountainside and me from my feet.
A sleek, low-flying silvercraft streaked into view from where my colleagues must have been, and began to circle the red plateau. The blue grazers, dominant life forms though they may have been on Dakota Prime fled west toward a faint ocean horizon. And despite their obvious panic, these amazing creatures still moved as one, perhaps communicating collectively that their herd would have a greater chance of survival side by side. Or perhaps this behaviour was innate, instilled through millions of years of gut instinct. Whatever the origins, it did not avail them. In a series of devastating passes, the craft unleashed enough concentrated firepower to make absolutely certain no grazer would ever roam again in this or any other valley.
As I later found out, 'Ansen - De Maynes' had used my colleagues and I as little more than an alibi for this illegal 'cleansing'. The hostile organisms were a threat to the extraction of valuable elements located throughout the planet - an operation that would require many human colonies be built over many years. And to cover up the existence of such a significant species would be impossible, unless they were removed beforehand. If we were on record as still surveying the continent, then the corporation had a window in which to ensure this purging of indigenous life. Through our millions of years, was this what we had evolved into?
Shortly, as the smoke rose to leave an indelible image of the smouldering remains of these blue giants, I saw one of them drag its melted body across that of another, whereby they both expired. A gesture of protection even as the species was being eradicated? Even the fiercest and most absurd creatures do not judge.
As the governing of deep space exploration, in time, becomes nigh impossible, and the downfall of 'Ansen - De Maynes' by my infamous testimony to ISPA a faint memory, I ponder now the limits of our selfishness. For minds beset by thirst have a limitless pool from which to sip... and there not all thirsts are the same. The sense of harmony I encountered in the inhabitants of Dakota Prime was fleeting, yet will never leave me. And as I imagine dusk enveloping the empty grey continents of that unfulfilled world, I wonder - ultimately - what is to be our own lasting taste of the universe we explore?
Robert B. Appleton is a twenty-five year old Film Studies graduate from England. He recently began writing short stories and poetry, and is currently working hard on his first science-fiction novel. A curious cocktail of dreams and cynicism, his main influences are the speculative sci-fi writers of the late Victorian era, particularly HG Wells, Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne. His many other interests include soccer, kayaking and collecting classic movies.
© Robert B. Appleton
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