My Friend is an Alien - Edlund Niklas. Страница 23

"But we are." said Jahv. "We figured it out one night. This world has a rotational period that is only 0.025 % different than ours. And we age at nearly the same rate."

"They don't know that." countered Keyro. "Look at it this way, big brother. You know how upset our parents would get whenever we'd just hug each other."

"They didn't like it." admitted Jahv. "Said we'd picked up bad habits from other worlds."

Keyro nodded. "These kids seem a lot more open. And they're sure a lot more fun to be around. You should open up a bit more yourself. And you might find a really good friend in Niklas if you do."

Unfortunately, to date, there hadn't been that many opportunities to really test that theory, although Jahv certainly intended to do so, but not while flying a shuttle. That didn't mean that he couldn't enjoy the boy's company, however.

And Niklas was now talking to him. "What's your world like, Jahv?" Niklas asked.

Jahv recalled that Niklas had not been along on the holocron expedition recently. "Boring, frankly. There's some areas, mostly nature reserves. But we're not a people who do much with design, or art, or decoration. Everything is designed to be functional and not much else."

Niklas frowned at that, but then grinned again as he asked another question. "Isn't it just a little weird to run around naked most of the time when most everyone else is dressed?"

Jahv shrugged. "Not if that's what you were brought up to think of as normal. Besides, it's convenient."

"Convenient?" asked Niklas.

"Sure, you can pee anywhere you have to on a moment's notice." replied Jahv.

Niklas gave the green-skinned youngster an expression of combined alarm and skepticism. "Yes, I'm kidding." snickered Jahv. "Sorry, I guess I still have to work on my sense of humor."

"No, that's okay." said Niklas. "Just made for a weird image."

A short while later, the stars returned to their normal appearance, and there was a new planet slowly growing in size through the front window.

The world looked somewhat like Earth, but it was clear that it had less land mass, and the configuration of the continents was different. The oceans had a greenish tinge to them. There were more but thinner clouds, and the color of the continents was greener than Earth's.

"Ohhhh, wow." said Niklas in a quiet voice.

"This is incredible!" said Davy, somewhat louder. "That's really a whole 'nother world in a whole 'nother star system! It's really out there! We're really here! Look at that!"

Either Keith was also sufficiently impressed, or he was deciding to remain silent for the sake of his two friends' enjoyment.

"I'm homing in on the distress signal." reported Jahv, directing the shuttle to approach the planet. Calculating a proper orbit was actually what would take the greatest amount of time on their trip, except for the time spent in hyperwarp. Entering a proper orbit of a previously unknown world, Jahv explained, was always a precision maneuver, and landing on such a world even trickier. But before too long, they were rumbling through the atmosphere of the eerie new world. Jahv was used to this sort of thing. Niklas, Davy, and even Keith had their noses pressed to the windows, taking in everything, amazed. The green was clearly jungle. The entire planet seemed to be jungle, where there was land. The sky was pale green.

"Good." said Jahv, more to himself than anything. "A clearing ahead, and within half a mile of the distress signal."

Jahv brought the shuttle down for a landing and opened the hatch. He grabbed his ever-present backpack and motioned to the others. "This is unreal." whispered Davy. "We're actually on another world, that no one on Earth even knows about!"

Jahv was waving a scanner device around. "Distress beacon is about half a mile in that direction." he said, pointing towards a dense jungle. "Life readings are complex. Having trouble focusing on anything sentient. Perhaps once we have a better handle on whatever animal life exists here, we can do some fine-tuning."

"Assuming anyone's here." remarked Keith. "That distress beacon could just be all that's left of something."

"True, but I'd like to make sure if we can." replied Jahv. "Let's go."

The group headed towards the jungle, and were suddenly stopped when a huge grouping of round, fan-like flowers shot up from the tall grass.

"Yeek!" sputtered Niklas, startled, as were the others.

"Mobile plants." remarked Keith. "This is weird."

Jahv was hastily running his sensor near them. "They've reacted to our presence, but there's no indication of toxins in them. If they're capable of doing anything, it won't harm us. They do seem to be equipped to spray some sort of.

Before he could finish, the group of plants shot a fine blue cloud of pollen at the four youngsters. "If this is the local version of poison oak —!" snapped Keith.

"No, it's not toxic to either you guys or to me." said Jahv. "But it does seem to have reactive properties with certain organic strains of.

"Hey!" yelped Davy. "My suit is dissolving!"

"Mine, too!" added Niklas.

Jahv looked down and noticed that he was practically naked except for his boots, as well, which were made from a different, non-organic material.

Keith was almost laughing. "Boy, all of a sudden I'm really glad I kept my underwear on."

Within seconds, except for Keith's underwear, all the four boys were wearing were their boots. "What do we do now?" asked Niklas.

"I don't think there's much we CAN do." said Jahv. "These plants seem to be plentiful, and react to the presence of what they obviously consider a threat. While they can't harm us, they can clearly dissolve certain plant-based organics, which our uniforms were made out of."

"Good thing my shorts aren't cotton." remarked Keith, finding it difficult to keep a straight face.

"I can replicate new uniforms once we head back, but it'd be wasteful to attempt to replace them now." said Jahv. "These plants would just do it again."

Davy shrugged. "Oh, well, it's an isolated planet, with maybe only a handful of survivors here besides us. Let's hope they're not too picky about clothing."

"Let's hope there aren't any nastier specimens of plant life around here." said Niklas.

"Hey, guys, what do we call these plants?" asked Keith. "How about stripper plants?"

"Keep it up, Keith, and I'll throw your shorts into a tree." said Davy. "With or without you, I'll decide later."

"Let's keep going." said Jahv.

Fortunately, none of the plants in the jungle the boys had to make their way through seemed especially harsh. No thorns, burrs, or sharp-edged leaves to tear into skin. Even the bark of trees seemed soft to the touch. Roughly half an hour later, the group found the distress beacon Jahv had detected.

It was about two feet high, with a dish about four feet in diameter and a coil of glowing blue wire running in a spiral pattern throughout the dish. Nearby, perhaps twenty yards or so, was a fair pile of wreckage of a vessel somewhat larger than the one the boys had arrived in. It was difficult to be certain. "Nasty." remarked Keith.

"But someone survived." said Davy. "This distress beacon didn't set itself up."

Jahv seemed stunned. "I don't believe this. The shuttle, this equipment — it's Dorrian!"

"Someone you know?" asked Niklas.

Jahv shook his head. "Dorrians are — were — a race, like Keyro and I are Botarans."

"'Were'?" asked Davy.

Jahv paused to explain. "A number of years ago, a race called the Soluans — huge, lizard-like beings — warriors and conquerors, although more nasty than effective — invaded the Dorrian homeworld. The Dorrians fought back — a little too well."