Chapter 1: Dire Warnings
“Reynold 2, known locally as Overhang, is very different to any other planet any of you will have visited before. The landscapes are different, the flora are different, the fauna are different, and as a result so are the dangers.”
This proclamation did not quite achieve the ripple of shock and horror the instructor might have hoped for. Daphne considered rolling her eyes, but dismissed it as too derivative. Of course it was different, that’s what you get with time-warp terraforming. Set up the initial conditions, then speed the planet up by a couple of hundred million years, pausing occasionally to add extra ingredients. Result: one world semi-suitable for human colonisation, plus or minus five percent. The ecosystem would be pretty much random, but the proteins should be compatible and the atmosphere breathable, presuming you hadn’t screwed it up to badly.
As a result, anyone who had ever been to space knew damn well that any given planet would be unique. As the habitual spacers liked to say, ‘planets are like a bocksahchoclat’. Nobody nowadays was quite sure what this actually meant, but saying it made you feel like a real hard-bitten planet-hopper and so the truism endured.
Seeing that, once again, his opening statement had failed to enthrall the room, the instructor continued on stoically. He flicked the presentation onto the next slide and fiddled with some bit of tech attached to the podium.
“To be prepared for Overhang’s anomalous dangers, you must first understand the underlying mechanism of the planet’s ecosystem. Consider, if you will, the archetype of plants best known in Earth’s grasses. Grasses, or species very like them, exist in over 80% of all terraformed planets. The key to their success is that they can survive grazing: Herbivores eat the tops of their leaves without damaging the stem of the plant itself. As a result, the herbivores that feed on them thrive, and in doing so eat to death all of the grasses’ competition. It’s been an extraordinarily successful strategy among plants across the galaxy.”
Daphne noted that, already, the only people paying attention were the naturalists. Presumably the decision to pile everyone from the latest planetfall into the same induction had been some shortsighted cost cutting measure, but in any case it seemed that they were all to be treated to a long-winded biology special.
She glanced around the slightly crummy lecture theatre, secreted at the back of the spaceport for just this purpose, and marvelled at how clear were the self-imposed distinctions between professions. To the left were the corporation engineers, easily recognised by their uniforms and looks of derision at the idea of biology being a real science. To the right, the short-stay contract workers, hired in three year stints to do shit work for shit pay that they could send back to their families. In a clump at the front, an inbound group from the Environmental Research Commission, who at least seemed to be following the thread of the presentation. In one far corner at the back were what appeared to be some real honest-to-God dumb-as-dirt colonists, despised by all for their tendencies to get in the way at every opportunity, go NIMBY towards important infrastructure, have unproductive children, and wreck the local environment. Already they were quietly chatting amongst themselves, secure in the knowledge that, should they encounter any of the dangers the instructor mentioned, someone who was listening would be despatched to pull them out of the shit.
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Around the large blocks were other, smaller groups of incomers, less easy to neatly categorised. Including, of course, Daphne herself and her colleague, Hugo. ‘Corporate Troubleshooters’, what a lovely, ambiguous job title.
Secure in the knowledge that most of the occupants of the room were cretins, Daphne allowed herself a small self-indulgent sneer and flicked her attention back to the instructor.
“While the strategy is common among plants, to our knowledge it had never been adopted by any organism further up the food-chain. That is, until Overhang. Ladies and gentlemen, please observe the creature known locally as the ‘nyasi’.”
Next slide. On this one, a video played, showing a large herd of enormous, shambling beasts slowly pounding their way across the local savannah. As always when encountering a novel planetary ecosystem, the mind tried to find an analogue in what it already knew, and the closest Daphne’s could come up with was ‘enormous colourful beetle tank thing’. Much like an oversized beetle, the creatures were covered in armour, but on a scale and intensity that was utterly alien. Giant, overlapping sheets of some chitin-like substance, over an inch thick, wrapped in interlocking layers around a vast bulk. The creatures moved on eight substantial legs that resembled those of an elephant more than anything else, but the head was distinctly insectoid, with enormous scythe-like mandibles stretching a metre out from the carefully protected mouth and eyes. Perfect for sweeping up the local grass-archetype, or indeed for cleaving up any unfortunate soul in the way.
Most notable, however, were the colours of the nyasi’s shells and the strange bulbous growths upon them. The armour was bedecked in striking multicolour markings, unique to each individual, but in each case centring attention on large, rounded bulges that grew four-a-side above each leg. These, unlike the creature’s other components, appeared to be unarmoured, and strikingly easy to access.
“Observe those large pods on the creatures’ sides,” continued the instructor, “for the vast majority of the planet’s ecosystem is based upon them. The nyasi, uniquely, have developed a strategy to feed their predators at a manageable cost to themselves, much like a grass. Those pods are filled with a nutritious fat, and are easily ripped away by a carnivorous attacker. The nyasi stay alive, which is why various species in the evolutionary family now cover 86% of Overhang’s landmass. The predators get fed, and as a result, there are many, many of them. And because there are so many predators, anything that isn’t a nyasi has been eaten to death.
“To our knowledge, there is no herbivore above the size of a small dog anywhere on this planet, with the exception of the nyasi. They’ve all gone extinct.”
The instructor switched off the video, drawing complaints from the would-be colonists who had been enjoying the pretty pictures. Suddenly, he brought his open hand down upon the lectern with a bang, startling the room. Content that, for the first time that morning, he had everyone’s attention, he glared at them all.
“Anything that you see on this planet that weighs more than five kilos and doesn’t look like a nyasi is a predator. Any of those predators will be trying to eat you.
“This planet has been declared level three hazardous by the Environmental Research Commission. Humans are not the top predator here, and it is very possible to get yourselves killed.
“So pay attention.”