Gliese Chronicles: Exploration of Sakcore Ch. 1
By Rachel Anne Wallace
When it comes to human exploration there is always a first, at least human history records it as such. This was our first visit to the moon called Sakcore circling the super-earth sized planet Gliese 581c, now known as Tridor. Tridor was discovered in the year 2007 and was determined to have a mass 5.5 times that of Earth with an orbital period of 13 standard days, its moon, Gliese 581ca, wasn't discovered for another fifty-five years after the arrival of New Horizons in 2171. But exploration always comes with a cost, both monetary and in personal investment in one form or another, even when done in the name of science. Still, we could hardly contain the thrill, the palpable exhilaration, of being the first humans to set foot on this moon. We knew there were risks, but it would be worth it--this would be a personal first for each of us. Before we had followed after others—this one was ours alone.
Astronomers were busy mapping the Gliese system upon arrival, with the primary focus on identifying and plotting the trajectories of the many asteroids that were in close proximity to the new colonies. These asteroids represented a significant threat to commerce between the planets and to disruption of their ecosystems if struck. Some observation time was devoted to identifying major features of the neighboring stars and their planetary systems, but the number of available telescopes was limited. Most of these telescopes, in terms of time allocated for use, was steered towards planetary defense over pure science. The colonies' interests basically had them looking inward rather than outward.
The reason these worlds hadn't been explored earlier at first seemed strange to me. Why would you not investigate the very best places first? That answer, once I discovered it, made perfect sense. With such a small human presence there was no need to go beyond those planets initially selected for colonization. The other habitable planets in the Gliese system had proven tractable for human occupation and these distant planet and moon systems had been of little interest except to scientists. Previous exploration here had been by use of remote probes that collected samples for evidence of biological compounds or looked at gross atmospheric or geological processes.
Our group of three women, a man, and a male humanoid robot named Robb comprised the mission team. Upon landing, it didn't take long for us to grow excited by the unfamiliar life forms, both plant and animal, we found. Hianne, our microbiologist, was beside herself as she had found a number of species previously identified on Tridor when visited by the use of remote probes years before. Kira, our aquatic ecologist, who tended to be subdued, showed more exuberance than during past missions; though she could be difficult to read at times. I, Cela Beckworth, the former Cela Olson, was the mission zoologist, married to Jason, the mission botanist.
What made Sakcore interesting to us was the fact it was a little smaller than the planet Earth our ancestors had lived on, being similar in atmosphere, gravity, and chemistry. Sakcore's day length as it orbited Tridor supported human circadian rhythms. Our circadian rhythm had been carefully preserved over several hundreds of years of occupation by controlling the periods of light and darkness in all human occupied spaces. A standardized and uniform system of day/night cycles operated regardless of where you lived or traveled in the Gliese system. Human biology was adaptable within certain limits and a great deal of thought and effort was expended to keep our physiological functioning intact.
Tridor, was tidally locked so it always presented the same face as it made its orbit around its star. From space, the arid, sunbaked surface showed numerous craters from past asteroid or comet impacts. The frozen, shadow-side showed similar features, though obscured below a thick mantle of snow and ice. The terminator of the planet supported plants and some multicellular animals where atmospheric mixing created a band of habitable land and water with moderated temperatures. This band was about three thousand kilometers wide, showing shades of green and blue from space. The surface gravity was three times Earth standard so human exploration wasn't possible unless inside a sealed vessel for short periods.
We had established a new sampling site a standard month ago after orbiting the moon for a week to conduct preliminary geological and vegetative habitat mapping to upgrade the previous maps we arrived with. We then selected specific locations to conduct our baseline surveys by finding suitable landing sites for our ship. Upon landing, we hadn't found any unknown toxic substances that would harm us after we conducted a whole series of standard tests. Nevertheless, I had managed to find trouble of another kind entirely—in fact, almost the opposite, it had been non-toxic and pleasurable.
Now, it seemed having gone alone on this short foray was a mistake—undoubtedly exacerbated by my overactive curiosity. Jason, told me it wasn't a good idea to go off alone quite yet and I had promised him I would be extra careful and wouldn't go far—I had kept part of that promise. Now, he was at our ship two kilometers away with Kira and Hianne, and our droid. I was in a bind and he wouldn't expect me back for at least two hours unless I called. I was impaled on a plant that had taken a liking to me—well, that was after I had taken a liking to it in a manner of speaking.
I cursed myself knowing that if Jason had been with me I never would have done it. I could see my boots and clothes lying on the soft, moss-like ground cover a meter beyond my grasp. I could see my belt with the handle of my knife and my communicator protruding from their sheaths in plain view. I was naked, lying face down with a pair of soft-cushioned petal-like structures across my lower back and pelvis holding me down firmly. I wasn't sure how long it would continue to hold me—it had already been at least twenty-minutes, and I was growing desperate. I wasn't in pain, but I wasn't used to having a penis-like object inside me for over half an hour at a time either—if Jason found me this way I wasn't sure what he would say.
It had started innocently enough. Jason and I had discovered a semi-armored, eight-legged animal about two-meters wide, four-meters long, and less than two meters high a week ago. I had taken an immediate interest in these creatures as they were the largest herbivore we had observed during our time here and were entirely different from any we had ever observed on other planets or moons of the Gliese system. They possessed a head that tucked partially into a groove in their shell—their strong jaws adapted for eating the coarse vegetation of the savannah. Their two eyes were a soft green color, with black horizontal slits, representing an iris. We had never heard them vocalize, though at times when they touched shells you could detect a thumping noise as if someone were knocking inside. Six of the legs were for locomotion with leather-like pads on the bearing surfaces, while the other pair seemed designed for another purpose. They were almost hand-like, soft to the touch with three digits, and located at the very rear of the animal as the last set of appendages.
These appendages tucked underneath a harder dorsal mantle, with the anterior venter of the animal composed of segments for the attachment of the legs for two-thirds the length, with one-third of the posterior composed of a fleshy, large slit with another set of lips inside—major and minor labia. There was no mistaking the structure as looking like human female genitalia, which seemed strange, as the animals were hermaphroditic—having both male and female organs based upon scans. There were at least three different species with distinctive colored markings on their bodies, in terms of overall size they went from smaller to larger—evidence of divergent evolution. The first animal we observed was the large size, though we didn't know it at the time.
They grazed on the abundant vegetation of this verdant savannah and we had followed them for days, making notes on their behavior and photographing the plants they fed upon. Since a landing party hadn't ever explored this moon, only a probe with sensors it meant we had the task of naming most of whatever we found. To be efficient we named the plants using a simple numbering scheme until we had time to work on their classification based upon the genetic samples we were collecting. Then we would provide both common and scientific names in a summary publication to present a taxonomy.
Jason, had suggestively and unofficially, called the animals 'armored pussies.' We women had laughed and agreed somewhat hesitantly after not having come up with better names ourselves. Having an animal named after a part of my anatomy was something I hadn't expected. I had thought of labiaderms as a group name a few days later as an alternative. I still hadn't suggested it, thinking I should think about it a little more—at least it sounded more scientific. We decided to call them APs for short.
I thought the genus name could be Pussilus, with a specific epithet describing some feature of the species—
Pussilus gigantea
, for the largest species, and
P. minimus
, for the smaller—that would translate into Big Pussy and Little Pussy, respectively. It was a no-brainer for the intermediate size form. Jason would be sure to suggest a common name like- Armored Big Pussy; it even brought a smile to my face when I thought about it. No one said scientific and common names had to be staid.
I had discovered a well-used trail created by the APs, as I had decided to call them, and soon found myself in a sheltered cluster of trees where groundwater came to the surface in shallow pools between smaller dry areas covered with moss-like plants. At first, it seemed strange the APs would come here as they didn't forage on the moss plants. On my second trip to the site, I followed a group of four as they walked at my pace towards the grove of trees with seeming determination. It was when I reached the center of the grove I noticed scattered phallic structures protruding from the mossy mat. The APs headed towards them and looked at them with their stalked eyes, then licked them with a flat tongue that extended from their slightly protruding lips.
I watched for a few minutes as one of the APs selected a single phallus, licked it, then took it into its mouth for a few seconds, then seconds later turned around, and proceeded to use their rear-most appendages to gently grasp the phallus and stroke it a few times, afterward lifting up and pushing down onto it with gentle rocking motions until the phallus was completely under them. I was dumbstruck. What were they doing with these plants, as that is surely what they were? The APs rocked gently to and fro, their eyes closing. After about fifteen minutes an AP would lift up and walk away, leaving the phallus glistening wet in the sunlight. It was almost embarrassing to watch—as if I were a voyeur.
I walked over and inspected the phallus and saw a purple, semen-like substance at the tip. I elected not to touch it as this point knowing it had been inside an AP—no reason to get too curious. I walked to another phallus and inspected it closely, then another, and then a few more. They varied in size and in color and I realized the APs tended to select a phallus size peculiar to themselves as a species—at least based upon these preliminary observations.
