Pasterox

Tall, gangling trees made of an orange bark and aqua leaves swayed. Looking up the trunk was Oliver, who steadily opened his eyes. The view was muddy; his space helmet was dirtied on the glass. He reached his tiny hands up and tried wiping away the mud, only smearing it across the whole glass. Oliver looked above himself and realized he was now looking at the turquoise grass, tall and lush. He then put together the situation: he was hanging from the tree upside down.

Oliver reached up his right leg and felt thin ropes holding up his ankle. He understood it was his parachute that had launched him from the Odysseus as it hurled in a fiery blaze towards this strange planet.

Still in its sheath, Oliver pulled from his belt loop a small camping knife and began cutting himself free. He snapped the final thread loose and dropped onto the ground. The impact wasn’t forceful; Oliver reasoned gravity on this planet might be weaker than Earth’s. Oliver stood himself up and tried surveying the landscape but the mud was too difficult to make out anything. He flipped open a pad reader on his forearm, built into his space suit, and held a button down.

Within a few seconds, his HUD flashed inside his helmet, quickly followed by a dangerous warning of low battery. The caution symbol disappeared and he was able to collect a basic reading of his environment:

Gravitational pull = 3.876 m/s ²; less than Earth’s but stronger than Earth’s moon

Local Humidity = 46%

Time = approximately 11:58am, Earth’s time

Oxygen level: 65% atmospheric

The oxygen level was the most important information, and it startled Oliver, as Earth’s atmospheric oxygen level was roughly only 20%. If his suit’s calculations were accurate, he could remove his helmet. He’d have to; he would remain blind if he didn’t. He shut off his suit to retain what battery he had left.

Slowly Oliver twisted his helmet to the left, trapped air escaped and made a hissing sound. He wouldn’t know yet if the air was pure enough to breathe in until he completely removed it. He pulled the helmet off and inhaled some of the cleanest air his lungs had tasted; it was sweet and almost moist. It was so clean it almost stung.

He pulled the helmet completely off and dropped it on the ground. He surveyed the landscape of the foreign planet with complete vision. The world was covered with turquoise grass and tall, gangling, orange trees with aqua colored leaves. There were mountains in the distance, magenta clay. The sky was a pale green, soft and cool. There were no clouds, and the daylight star could not be traced yet, though it was approximately noon, as his HUD estimated. The sounds that surrounded Oliver were most similar to the jungles he remembered on Earth, but sounds and creatures that echoed new and unusual noises he couldn’t yet describe. There was both a strange feeling of predator and prey in this uncharted planet; he still had to determine which he was.

Oliver looked above him at the tree that suspended him and saw the parachute tangled in the limbs. He spun around and gave a cursory glance for billowing smoke, any kind of signal to indicate where the Odysseus crashed, but he couldn’t locate anything. He was lost.

The only thing Oliver figured he could do was begin walking. In the scope of 360 degrees, his first step would either be in the 180 degrees closer or further from his spaceship, and each step after might be another step further from his only transport. And it was the risk he’d have to take.

Oliver took his first step in the direction he was already facing, away from the tree that caught his parachute, and began trekking. He had no food or weapons of defense, so he’d have to find resources and possibly shelter, though his intuition had reduced to a Neanderthalic ignorance; he’d have to discover by hunting and gathering in order to document what was edible – if he survived that long.

In due time, Oliver had trekked up to the magenta mountain he saw before, closest to him, and dug his boot in the what he though was clay but was more of a sponge-y texture. He didn’t clump together or slide, rather it ripped like foam if he dug too sharply into it. The unexpected surface made climbing the mountain more difficult than he anticipated, but in due time Oliver reached the summit.

At the peak, he saw a similar landscape with orange trees, more magenta mountains, and bushes of turquoise grass. But the newest discovery was a herd of creatures, lapping water in the distance out of a black colored pond. The creatures were bipedal, greyish-red, with small, clawed arms than hung below their chests, and long, stout tails with stripes on them. They had long snouts that seemed to retract and extend based on the reach they needed, like springs. The most defining feature was a set of lateral projections, boney sprouts of their same greyish-red flesh covering it, upon their heads. An eye was on either set of their hammer-shaped heads, yet they had a second set of eyes between their lateral projections, counting four eyes in total. They galloped gracefully when they ran and their hips moved like bricks when they walked. When they spoke, they made ominous whistling sounds, like that of Earth’s whales though layered with a more cervid-like groan, similar to moose.

It dawned on Oliver that he’d have the opportunity to name these creatures, at least for now. Based on the description he observed, he used Latin to call them Crescnasus, for their strange nose.

Strutting towards the herd of crescnasae was a plated beast, with a thick layer of tough skin, walking on six legs in total. It had a small, wispy tail and two sets of ivory tusks: two stretching from under its pig-like snout and another two jutting out from the sides of its ears, like a devil. It grumbled as it approached the herd. Oliver thought of a name of the beast and called it a Mortusk, for its dangerous tusks. At first, Oliver thought the mortusk was the predator, with its tank appearance, but the crescnasae turned and sprinted towards the mortusk and began springing acidic slime out of their snouts. Several shots hit the beast, causing it to cry out, eerily human-like. The crescnasae wounded the mortusk until it collapsed in agony, where the crescnasae galloped to the weakened beast, writhing in pain, and began feasting on the open wounds; Oliver’s view of the mortusk was obstructed by the crowd of crescnasae feasting on each angle of the beast.

It was apparent that Oliver should at least travel around the crescnasae, if not travel the other way, but as he looked to his right he saw one of the crescnasae near him. It tilted its boney hammer head and began whistling its groan. The crescnasus careened its neck and shot an acid slime ball at Oliver, who instantly ducked and ran back to the edge of the magenta mountain. He decided to leap off the edge, using the low gravity to soften the fall, as well as the sponge-y surface of the mountain, where he bounced off the ground on impact and landed a second time. Shots of acidic slime shot after him as the crescnasus chased him.

Oliver ran past his parachute and bolted in the opposite direction. He weaved between orange trees and ran through land coral, elastic in nature that released putrid fumes when touched, like old spores. The smell was unbearable as Oliver had no choice but to keep going, the crescnasus was gaining on him.

Oliver suddenly saw his path narrowing; magenta mountains closed in around him like walls. He continued running forward, refusing to look back at the sounds of wet projectiles burning the grass around him. There was a small opening, like a cave, ahead of him. He’d have to go inside.

As Oliver reached the cave, he heard the crescnasus suddenly groan in terror. He looked behind him and saw the crescnasus surrounded by small leaf-like beings leeching off its body. Hundreds of them suddenly appeared and dried the crescnasus into a raisin husk of itself, dropping into the turquoise grass.

Oliver backpedaled into the cave and hid in the darkness as he watched the leaf beings consume the crescnasus corpse. He saw a light inside the tunnel, flickering against the cavern walls. A rush of fear swallowed Oliver. The light was most likely a fire, which meant there was something sentient waiting around the corner. But he couldn’t return to the hostile nature of the open jungle; the creatures were eating each other, and he hadn’t developed survival instincts yet. So he’d have to greet the sentient fire-maker inside.

Oliver turned the corner in the cave and saw indeed a small fire flickering, but much to his surprise he saw surrounding the fire were hundreds of the same leaf-like beings. They gathered orderly around the fire and seemed to be in community with one another. Oliver had time to see they each had extremely thin legs and arms, like the veins and stems of a leaf as their limbs. They had no discernible face yet they did bend their bodies in a way that indicated where the front of each of them was.

The leaf beings were communicating with each other, speaking in squeaky snorts and hoots. They were indeed sentient, and as they spoke with one another, Oliver noticed there were children, smaller leaf beings playing with one another. Oliver watched them live in a civilized manner and decided he’d call these leaf beings Kodo, something based on his childhood that they reminded him of.

The kodos suddenly hushed as they realized Oliver’s presence, all turning their leafy bodies to face him. He was terrified, knowing how they leeched the crescnasus so quickly. But they stared silently and did not move. Oliver and the kodos waited for each other, trying to determine whether the other intended to befriend of consume.

Eventually, one of the kodos stepped forward, waddling as it came towards Oliver. It bent down and lifted a tiny rock off the ground and held it with both hands up to Oliver. He realized this could be a gesture of peace, and so he slowly knelt down and reached for the small rock. He took it carefully from the kodo’s hands. The kodo took a step back and waited; all of the kodos waited.

Oliver watched them remain in silence. He thought perhaps the kodos would like an exchange. So Oliver looked at his space suit and tore a small patch off his shoulder. He handed it back to the kodo that gave him the rock. The kodo – to Oliver’s surprise, as the kodo was half the size – held the patch and studied it diligently.

The kodo looked back at the crowd of hundreds of kodo and began hooting. Suddenly, all of the kodo made little jumps in place and seemed to celebrate. They rushed towards Oliver, scaring him as they quickly approached him, but they just jumped and danced around him, offering peace.

Oliver realized they had the capability to kill a crescnasus, something he hadn’t learned to do yet, or at least make a weapon that could, so he saw this union as promising. Oliver entered further in the cave and joined the circle of kodos by the fire. They brought him small rocks with flat surfaces that held little dollops of food, wet and mushy. They offered him several rocks of food, recognizing his massive size compared to them. Oliver was grateful, despite the food having no flavor aside from a hint of a mineral taste.

For now, Oliver would stay with the kodos. He thought of his longevity on this planet. He decided to call this planet Pasterox, for its wild and uncharted habitat as well as the pastel colors the world was painted with. On Pasterox, Oliver would have to make due until he found the Odysseus, but in the meantime he could have shelter and a sense of company with the kodos. If he was here long enough, he would try and communicate with them, possibly ask for their assistance in his search. For now, Oliver would sleep in the cave as the first man on the planet Pasterox.