A Dreamer's Worlds

Death Has Left the Building (Part 2 of Trees Grow in Dirt)

Julianna woke up and was pleased to find that she hadn't been mauled in her sleep. Not even a little bit. There were no plants to be found in her quarters. It was great.

She headed to the commons and was pleasantly surprised to see that someone had actually made coffee. It seemed like the start of a wonderful day.

It wasn't. It really wasn't.

Yet Julianna headed back to her lab, happily drinking her coffee. Like any other day, she would try and find another test to run on the soil. The number of tests she hadn't run was getting smaller and smaller, but somehow she still managed to find one to run.

That done, Julianna decided it was in her best interest to see how Trevor was doing with his poison. The walk to the genetics lab was calm with a surprising lack of homicidal plants.

Looking into the lab, Julianna noticed a distinct lack of plants. Or scientists. Hell, even some of the equipment was missing. It was like Trevor and Allan had packed up and were doing their experiments somewhere else.

Well, if one was space crazy, the other probably was too.

Julianna turned to leave, but something caught her eye. A note lay on Trevor's desk.

'Went outside. Come join us!'

It was Trevor's handwriting, the neatness a contrast to his personality. The note was clearly meant for Julianna, as Allan would have gone when Trevor did and no one but Julianna would care enough to read some random note on Trevor's desk.

Julianna thought that space craziness must be infectious, since she was actually considering it. They had enough oxygen and suits. It wasn't as if she would run out of air. Air was the only thing they had enough of here.

Having absolutely nothing better to do, Julianna made her way to the airlock. Just like she'd thought, Trevor and Allan's suits were missing. Hers was in the back, so she had to dig through equipment to get to it. That's what she got for never going outside.

Putting the suit on, Julianna remembered why. The suit wasn't hard to get on, it was just annoying. The air tank was the worst. She had to check it, and then she had to put it on, and then she had to connect it to her helmet.

She didn't even need most of that stuff. They'd already proved that they go outside with just an oxygen mask, but procedure apparently trumped new knowledge.

Suit on, Julianna stepped into the airlock. The pumps hissed as they pulled the oxygen out and created the vacuum. The vacuum didn't last long. The airlock doors quickly slid open to allow the outside atmosphere to rush in and push Julianna back.

Once the wind had stop, Julianna stepped out onto the barren planet. Besides the lack of life, the planet reminded her of any other planet. It wasn't dusty or dry. It just was.

The sky was blue, just like the atmosphere of any life supporting planet. That's how the space agency was tricked into think the planet was actually inhabitable.

The poison in the soil hadn't been noticeable at that point.

The com in Julianna's helmet crackled to life. Trevor's voice came through, mangled until the com had warmed up.

"-that hill." How informative. Julianna pressed the button to talk back.

"The com was booting up. Repeat that."

"From the base, go left. There's a hill and we're on that hill." Trevor sounded excited.

Julianna followed Trevor's instructions, finding him and Allan a decent distance from the base. She guessed that they hadn't wanted to be too close for whatever they were doing.

Allan waved her over. She joined the two at the top of the hill. Allan wildly gestured at something on the ground, but his suit made him more bulky than normal.

Julianna pushed him out of the way and crouched down to look at whatever the geneticists had found. She couldn't quite find any words when she saw it.

Scuttling in the dirt was a creature that looked much like a trilobite. It was making little patterns in the dirt, maybe trying to find a way to get away from these big creatures.

Its crystalline shell betrayed its biology. The creature had not only evolved to thrive in a carbon dioxide based atmosphere, but it has also ditched carbon in exchange for another element. The creature was made of silicon.

Julianna turned on her com.

"This is amazing."

She looked up to see Trevor nodding. Or, at least, as much as he could in one of these suits. Allan was the one to ruin it.

"I almost stepped on it." The man bent down and shoveled the creature into his palm. It flipped over, revealed that its limbs also resembled a trilobite.

"It's called convergence. A shape proves suitable for life and becomes prominent in unrelated lifeforms. It's like bats and pterodactyls." Trevor gently took the creature from Allan's hands. Julianna nodded. It made sense that a trilobite like creature would evolve. They'd been prosperous on Earth.

"We get to name this little guy. Did you think of that? Whole new animal classification. Whole new branches to study. It'd almost be a shame to get plants started here now."

Julianna wanted to burst Trevor's bubble and point out that if they didn't grow plants, they would all die. They couldn't grow nearly enough crops inside the base. Still, he could have its moment.

"I'm thinking Aretus primus. First of Arete, with a little bit of dog Latin thrown in. Think that's a good name?"

Aretus primus was doing its best to escape Trevor's hold. He covered it with his other hand.

"How are we going to keep it in the base? That much oxygen could poison it." Julianna burst his bubble now.

Trevor shook his head.

"Allen can get a tank from inside. I'll fill it with dirt and hopefully that's all it eats. Then there's no risk of oxygen poisoning."

That was the end of that. Trevor had his little alien trilobite and it was his to study.

Julianna just hoped little A. primus would never be the subject of experimentation.