Wednesday, August 06, 2008

The Yellow Planet (An out of sequence, 'Cadaverous Planet' sketch)

The Yellow Planet (An out of sequence, ‘Cadaverous Planet’ Sketch)




The trip was nasty, packed like bananas in a cargo bin, hurtling though space like an asteroid. Siren, and her two comrades, Tangor and Rognat, were with her, and they were for once not in the Black Galaxy, rather next door to earth’s solar system. Which consisted of the planet Moiromma, which her mother was born on, and Ice Cap, its moon, and Cibara was nearby and the comet Sedna as large as earth’s moon, and the unexplored planet called the Yellow Planet, which was on the same rotation as Cibara, in which it crept through the asteroid belt into earth’s solar system, and past Jupiter, so fast it was never seen as a planet, but rather as an asteroid or comet, but it was a planet, about half the size of earth’s moon.

“We have landed on the Yellow Planet, my feet just touched solid ground,” said Tangor, for the records, the commander of this flight being Rognat, his long time friend, and Siren, known as the liberator of the planet of SSARG, in the Black Galaxy (or often referred to as the Dark Galaxy).
It had all the amenities Earth and SSARG hand, as far as life support goes, such as: air and green growth, and a brilliant blue skies, and a laborious sun and it speed seemed to some kind of another force radioactive. It was a particular destination, one they didn’t really plan on making because rumors were, it was a god-forsaken planet, and for the record, yet it was in their path way, between Jupiter and Moiromma, and unexplored by anyone.


The air was moist as us two men, myself Tangor, and partner Rognat, walked out of the spacecraft, the atmospheric pressure, density was shown to be fine, it simply had a little too much oxygen on hand, and too much moist air, and the temperatures were above 90F.
When we had landed, Siren stayed behind, looking through the glass observer, a kind of porthole, a kind of peril-glass, it showed how high the radiation level, the suns emission discharge of energy onto the planet was, and what within its view might be harmful to our bodies, or infected by its substances within the environment. Rognat and I were excited to explore, and take the risk, Siren, as always, was thinking, planning and digesting everything insight.
It was a yellow nightmare, all the vegetation was yellow, and the atmospheric moister that fell was yellow condensed, not much green in the living plant life, but some. A lush tropical yellow forest, with tints of green; swamp-like growth raised all about, and the mud was even yellowish-brown, fertile yellow:
“Let’s go,” said Tangor, yelling and waving at Siren, but she remained on ship, and the two tall bull-like men, weather-beaten from the trip moved forward. They never questioned Siren, she was not one to do that to, they simply left well enough alone, if something was too dangerous, she’d let them know.

And so the two hunters, warriors, space travelers started their interspatial exploration of the planet, without Siren. He already had his coat of arms in the form of a flag, in the ground, and used as a marker of sorts. The ground under them got softer, the farther into the woods they went, oozed with yellow mud as they stepped further into forest’s swirling mist, hardly seeing what was ahead, flagpole now behind in the mud, he did say, for the record, “I claim this body of land in the name of Siren the Great!”
Tangor and his partner were famous throughout parts of the Black Galaxy and earth’s solar system, and Moiromma’s solar system, but Siren was feared everywhere, and so it was best to implant the fear sooner than later, and those who wished to challenge her right later let it be so.
The slimy ooze of mud crept up like a living force, as they sank down the further they stepped into the woods.
“Curse this mud,” said Rognat, “this planet is for the birds and who knows what else could survive here.”
“What is it,” asked Tangor, Rognat was kicking something, some kind of slimy creature out of his way.
“Looks similar to those vipers on planet SSARG, you know, the ones that live in the tall grasses, and are everywhere, the one Siren fought with, that Blaze, giant viper, but this one was just an eighth of the size we encountered there. Meaning this viper, a one tooth viper a great saber tooth viper, was perhaps only four or five feet, and about the circumference of his waste, which was about forty-two inches round, he was not fat, he was almost seven feet tall, and two hundred and sixty pounds. Tangor and Rognat were about the same age, the same built, except Tangor was more the warrior, the savage, the man with the spear, long hair, bloodshot eyes, silver bands around his upper arms, and Rognat was more the space adventurous person the more princely looking combatant, with a mustache and goatee (a small dark trimmed beard that went to appoint), eyes like a vipers, and he often wore a green flat had covering the top of his head, and long hair, brought back around his ears (where as Tangor’s hair was long but straggly). The ship belonged to Rognat; it was his ship they were on. And for those who know the history of these three characters, Siren gave birth to Rognat’s daughter, but that is another story, for another time.



Tangor (The warrior) & Rognat (Space Traveler)


“Here’s a dry spot,” said Tangor, suggesting they might stop for a moment and gather their thoughts, “I don’t like the looks of things, maybe it is good Siren remained behind, incase we get into a jam!”
And then Tangor gave Rognat a look to go forward, peering over to his sides apprehensively.
“Thought I saw something big move up ahead of us!” remarked Tangor.
The two followed the glance; they couldn’t find a thing once they got to where he spotted the movement.
“Perhaps I’m mistaken, but let’s keep an eye out,” Tangor said.
Rognat grinned, and followed by suggestion and Tangor’s lead.
“I think Tangor,” said Rognat irritated, “this mud, at least the yellow part of it is alive, if undulated it might form something like tentacles, because it keeps pulling at me, or the intent that tentacles do, or can do. Now that I think of it, when the snake had that yellow substance on it, with the mud it had energy, when I kicked my feet, and the mud came off, and the snake’s yellow mud rolled off because of the moisture, it left, it lost its energy source, its get-up-and-go spring.”
Then Tangor wiped the mud off his boots, and stopped, to rest, and took some leafage and wiped his gloves with them, and the leaves with the branches of the tree they came off of, started to grab him as if it was living, a living force had entered it, an entity; plus Rognat went to rescue him, but he had a lot of yellow mud on his hands, and when he pulled the branches and vines away from Tangor, it just replenished the energy within the tree with the yellow mud Rognat put back onto it, they were both fighting to free themselves now.
The harder they fought, the more mud they kicked up, the thicker the branches become until they turned into claws like on a wild cat, pressed close to heir bodies, monstrosity flooded their cerebellums with the substance within the mud, the yellow death, and they both screamed for Siren.

“Help! Help!...” Tangor shouted for the umpteenth time, then lost his energy, as did Rognat; they were several miles into the forest of death now.
They both became dizzy, their ankles tight with the tentacles of the trees, and the snakes now kicked their bodies about trying to feed the tree more of the yellow mud-substance, to keep its strength thriving, so it could kill the two invaders, and now both Tangor and Rognat, were next to fainting, from the heat, exhaustion, the lack of water, and the horror they found themselves in, the nausea from the mud and snakes alone was too much to bear, and now the creatures were trying to bite them them, and their faces become distorted from the infection that was entering their bodies, but the creatures only had one tooth, like a needle, they plunged it into the legs of both invaders, a saber tooth, long and thin, but it only sunk into the flesh an inch or so, the boots wee thick.
“What are you doing to my leg?” said Rognat, the snake was trying to rip his boots off, because only the end part of their tooth was harmful, pricking the skin, was not killing them, and they wanted to infect it deeper.
The thing must had broken its tooth off, the one main snake that would not leave the two astronauts, it indicted it was hurt from the driving force it used on Rognat; he, Rognat could see the inside of its mouth, deep in the fatty tissue, it was bleeding, discoloration appeared, and it turned about and died. Thus the loss of the saber tooth of the viper was a death sentence.
Tangor shook his head, “Put some antiseptic on it when we get back,” and they both laughed, as if they had lost their senses, but not their sense of humor.
Rognat was not the beast Tangor was, and Tangor was not the thinker Rognat was, yet Tangor knew it and told Rognat, “Be strong, we’ll get out of here yet, Siren knows we’re in some kind of trouble, we’ve been gone a long time, she’ll come, I’m sure she’ll come, we’re not going to die this way, not on this loathsome planet.”
For the first time Tangor noticed Rognat was really scared, he even heaved from his mouth, although he did not say a word.

That was hours ago, of course, he is resting now, as I write this for the records, he, being my companion Rognat is still not awake yet, he’s in the ships hospital bed. The three of us will leave the planet in a few hours: what had happened was this: something in the yellow mud, the chemicals of some kind had gotten into our blood stream, killing us slowly, as the trees and the snakes and this whole deadly planet started killing us slowly, Siren sensed something fomenting in the atmosphere, something that changed the compound of the mud, making it yellow, and infectious, some chemically which by way of the mud got into our blood-stream, and is in almost everything on this planet to a certain degree, and when this mud touches whatever it touches, it creates chemical reactions with the system it touches, be it mud, or foliage, or animal or human, or alien, and that put us in to harms way, frightened Rognat into a childlike behavior, psychologically, I blustered into fatigue myself, and Siren having witnessed the grotesque horror after making her body an antidote to the planet’s madness came searching for us, I suppose she was for a while one third-human, one third-Moiromma, and one third Yellow-planet, her system that is, and she smashed through the dead and pouring awful yellowish mingled cells of the veins, and mud and rescued us like a storm trooper, like I told Rognat she would.
I see Siren now, she’s grinning at me as I write this down into the annuals of our adventurers into space, to be read by humans and all those other alien forces out there, another day, she just whispered, “Lie a little…!”



Note: of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stores this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here was not meant to be part of the sequence, that was written over the past five years, although it is in relation to the characters of that series, and of the solar system the author has used, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home