Original Version
The Danziger stories were created because of a mistake made by the author of the opening segment of the stories. He wrote a teaser and posted it to the old ICQ New2Earth2 message board twice, unintentionally. Instead of deleting the second post, I thought it might be fun to write two stories from the same starting point and see how they each turned out.
This is the result of post number one.
Authors:
Beverly
Richard
Robert
TEASER:
If there was anything Danziger disliked more than the cold weather and lack of warmth inside the Quonset hut he shared with his daughter, it was having to get up in the middle of the night to take his turn on watch. Leaving the chilly atmosphere of the shelter for the freezing cold of the winter night made him wish every dire fate in the universe to befall the Council members who stranded him on this planet. He would be safely on his way home to the stations but for those anonymous, manipulating idiots.
He took his place beside the campfire and bid goodnight to Cameron.
"Take it easy, Danz," the other man said. "Night`s been quiet, really quiet. You and I are probably the only living creatures stupid enough to be out in this cold."
"I`ll buy that. See you later."
Slinging the mag-pro over his shoulder, John put a few more logs on the fire and decided to take a quick walk around the camp.
It was a clear, cloudless night as winter nights often were on the planet. One moon was partly behind the mountains and the other just about to set, but both were bright enough to give Danziger the needed light to see his way through the campsite without using a lumalight.
The area inside the laser defense perimeter was small with all of the tents, prefab buildings and vehicles as close to the biodome as possible. It was a short walk. Cameron had been right, Danziger told himself. There wasn't even the sound of tree branches moving in the wind to break the stillness of the night.
As he passed the vehicles and came within sight of the fire again, he noticed the snow just beyond the perimeter was disturbed in such a way that the ground was visible even in the moonlight.
Danziger took the lumalight from his pocket and walked closer for a better look.
Being careful to stay within the perimeter, John crouched and extended the lumalight carefully under the lasers to get a better look at the disturbance in the snow.
Footprints. No doubt about it.
He jerked his hand back and got to his feet. Spinning around he clicked his gear into place and called out, "Perimeter alert! Cameron, get back out here!"
Those who did not hear the warning over the gear link, heard Danziger`s voice repeat the warning from outside their tents and automatically left their beds to rush out into the night.
Another, closer search of the perimeter turned up no more tracks.
Yale, using his enhanced cybernetics to analyze the footprints, looked up from where he couched for a better look. "I would say it was a single person who made this impression. I would guess he was watching the camp for a long time before he left. Possibly when you started your perimeter check."
A short discussion led to the decision nothing could be accomplished in the darkness, and investigating the origin of the tracks would be better left until daylight. Most of the group returned to their cots.
The number of sentries was tripled, however, with Yale and Mazatl volunteering to join Danziger on watch until daybreak.
John was happy to have the company. Yale would be a help with his physical enhancements, and Mazatl, a long time friend and co-worker of John`s, had a keen eye for spotting things others might miss. Yale, dressed as warmly as possible, was about to leave the biodome when Devon called to him to wait. She looked worried and had not prepared to return to bed.
"Yes, Devon? Is something bothering you?"
"You were using your eye when you looked at the impressions in the snow, weren't you? Do you think it was made by a ZED?"
Danziger and Mazatl were discussing the same subject, a ZED, when Yale joined them at the campfire. Like him, the two men dismissed the possibility because of the footwear of the watcher, and the fact they were all still alive. Their one previous encounter with such a creature left no doubt a ZED preferred to shoot first and not observe quietly.
They`d come to the same conclusion Yale did and had explained to Devon. The camp was not in danger from a ZED, but none of the three men could rule out penal colonists, either - though the watcher could just as easily have been a curious grendler.
Mazatl didn't agree. "The grendlers have never been shy about approaching our campsites. If they want something they have no problem letting us know. "
"Yeah," Danziger said. "Grendlers collect shoes, but they don`t wear them."
"By the process of elimination, we are left with penal colonists," Yale said carefully. "Possibly other convicts who were sent here along with Mary`s parents. There were others, according to my information. Many others. Whether they were all abandoned to this continent, or even near each other, I wouldn't know."
By the time daybreak arrived, the three men had a plan of action in mind. When Magus came to relieve Danziger, they trooped into the biodome for breakfast and to tell the others what they thought they should do.
Within the hour, Danziger, Walman, Mazatl and Baines were outfitted and ready to follow the tracks. By daylight, it was easier to see they were made by an individual wearing human type footwear.
Under the objections of Devon and Dr. Heller who did not want the group to split up for any reason, the four man team took what weapons could be spared and left the camp.
The tracks came from the north, deeper into the valley where the biodome had been built.
Danziger asked Mazatl, "You`ve been this way looking for food, haven`t you? How far have you been?"
"Oh, ten klicks. The valley opens wide and turns east after that distance. I think it eventually leads back to the scrub land we crossed when we met the ZED."
By midday the four men had covered five kilometers. The deep snow and the unfamiliar terrain hampered their progress.
It had long been decided the most likely place to find a pass through the mountains would be to the south and most exploring by the Edenites was done there.
To the north, only the foraging parties had done any kind of exploring and mapping, but the information was limited to where food was found and not much else. Mazatl and Baines were along because they most often were on the foraging teams.
By the time they reached the area where the valley began to widen and deepen, it was late afternoon and the sky was beginning to cloud with a high, thin layer of gray streaks.
The tracks were unwavering. The person who made them was determined to get where he was going with all possible speed. Except for a rest break here and there, the signs were obvious, the individual pressed on with remarkable stamina.
When the woods gave way to a view of the valley Mazatl mentioned. The ground sloped downward and opened widely to the east, and somewhat less so to the west. Even so they saw the destination of the watcher almost immediately.
Tendrils of smoke curled into the air from a wooded area far across the valley to the west.
Danziger looked across the valley at the smoke, well aware of the other three waiting for him to decide what to do. He looked at Mazatl. "Did you go into the valley when you were here last?" he asked.
"No," the other man said. "We turned back here, but you can see the pass to the east where it goes back to the country we came through to get to our end of the valley." He pointed out the landmark as he talked.
"We didn't have to go farther," Baines added. "Eben found nuts and the other edible plants we have in stock on the hillside we just passed, so we gathered what we could carry and turned back for the biodome." Danziger looked through his jumpers. "So, chances are whoever lives on that slope didn't know we were at the dome."
Walman nodded. "Seems likely. Maybe they sent someone across to get something from the place, and he found us living there."
"Yeah. He wasn't seen...probably thinks he got away clean," Mazatl added.
Lowering the jumpers, Danziger looked at the others. "Let`s take a quick break here," he said. "Have something to eat, and then why don`t we make our approach through the trees? Looks like a rocky table over there in the woods between us and them. We should be able to get a good look at their camp from above without them seeing us."
"Spy on the spies, you mean?" Walman joked.
Baines continued looking at the tracks. "Not funny, Matt," he said. "They might be the armed and dangerous kind of penal colonists, ever thought of that? They might be the reason the Elder`s people stay underground."
"Relax, man," Walman answered. "The Elder would have told John and Devon about them, right, Danz?"
Danziger was already breaking out the small amount of food he was carrying and settling back against the bole of a tree. "If this is a penal colonist camp it might be temporary. The elder`s people never mentioned a settlement at this end of the valley."
The others followed suit, including Baines who nevertheless kept an eye on the open valley ahead of them.
"You mean sitting out the winter like we are?" he asked.
"Maybe," John said. "That`s what we`re going to find out. Take your mind off the tracks for a minute, okay, Jake? Call the dome and tell them what we`re planning."
It took a little over an hour to reach the base of the table formation. It was farther away than it looked, as things often were planet side. Luckily the climb to the top was relatively easy, and once at the top they found plenty of large boulders and small bushes for cover.
They moved northward to the edge of the table, and as expected, were able to see the source of the smoke from high above the trees.
It was another biodome.
Looking through the jumpers they brought along, the men observed a scene of winter life in the second camp that might have been what their own resembled.
"Well," Walman said. "Yale did say there was a large movement of radical biologists who were convicted of wanting to build domes on Earth. Looks like at least one more team was sent here along with Mary`s parents."
Baines shook his head. "For all we know there may be a dozen more all over the valley. We don`t know how far north along the mountains the valley goes."
"Calm down, Baines," Walman chided. "Those people are moving around down there. No one is dead."
He was answered with a glare.
Mazatl handed over his jumpers to Danziger. "John, look at the group of three trees near the blue tent. What do you think?"
Danziger, and Baines who had the other jumpers, looked. A figure huddled close to the ground beneath the trees.
Danziger recognized his old jacket. "Mary`s down there," he said.
When the men were convinced Mary was in the camp by choice and she was not being detained in any way, the next question became how to proceed.
With the possibility the person they were trailing had come to their camp because Mary told him someone was living there, the men were at odds about what to do next.
Simply wanting to see what the EA group, strangers to the valley, were like, if they would pose a threat, might have been the sole motive for spying on the camp - especially at night when the possibility of being discovered was almost nil.
In the end Danziger decided to return to camp without going further. They would let the people of the second biodome believe the EA camp didn't know they were there.
He made the decision after watching two members of the second dome caring for Mary in a way that told him they had welcomed her among themselves as surely as the Edenites had weeks ago.
They stopped where they had before, where they left the trail to cut through the woods to the rock table, and again reported to base camp on their findings.
Danziger was unsure how the news of Mary`s safe haven would be taken by the others. They`d assumed she had returned to the sunstone caves after her expulsion by the planet. Some of the Edenites had worried about her fate, especially Yale, and here she was in the company of other humans whom she seemed to know.
Danziger let Walman and Baines do the talking with camp while he and Mazatl looked across the valley through their jumpers and watched the area of the woods where smoke from the second biodome`s fires curled into the sky.
Occasionally, he answered a question from camp, or clarified a point, but he and Mazatl kept their attention on the other side of the valley. They had noticed something about the people that Walman and Baines hadn't.
The other people didn't dress in furs the way Whalen and the Elder`s people did.
They waited until near dark before going back the hillside Baines had mentioned earlier to make their own camp for the night. Putting their two-man tents as close to a small fire as possible, they had another meal of dried meat and vegetables and hunkered down for the night. No one was surprised when Baines took first watch.
They broke camp at dawn and headed south. Behind them the smoke from the fires at the second dome were already rising through the trees and dissipating high in the air.
As the other two men trudged homeward ahead of Danziger and Mazatl, keeping up a steady conversation of what they were going to do that evening after eating a hot meal, Danziger`s mind was on the second biodome.
He looked at Mazatl out of the corner of his eye. "What do you think, Chris?" he asked, keeping his voice low.
Mazatl shook his head. "They weren't Eden Advance. I didn't recognize anyone. They could be recent penal colonists, John."
"I know, but I don`t think so. They took in Mary and seemed to be concerned for her welfare. They might just as well be some of the other biologists Yale was talking about."
"I hope so, but where are they getting their clothes? Unless they perfected textile manufacturing in their dome, I don`t see how they could have been here twenty years and still have wearable clothes."
"Could be from one of our cargo pods," John pointed out, and immediately ruled it out mentally.
"Doubt it. Still, what are you going to tell Devon?"
He sighed. "I`m working on it."
Late in the afternoon the men began to recognize the area around them. They were nearing home.
Mazatl took the opportunity to approach Danziger again.
"So, how do we handle this?" he asked. "If I`ve been having second thoughts about not going all the way to the other biodome, I`ll bet you have, too."
"Yeah, you`re right," Danziger said. "I`ll bet even Baines has."
"I heard that!" Baines called over his shoulder, causing the two men to laugh lightly. There was no tension in his voice anymore.
"Okay, look. We know Mary has been getting her clothes from somewhere. Maybe from them. Since our dome has been abandoned for a long time - probably because of the deaths that occurred there, these others may have been doing just what we thought in the first place. Using it for spare parts. I`m thinking Mary didn't tell them about us, and when their scout came to get extra clothing and materials from our dome, he was surprised to find us there and left to report to his people."
The biodome came into view two hours later. The discussion about the scout team`s handling of the situation was not as animated nor disapproving as Danziger feared it might be. Adair and the doctor seemed relieved they had handled the situation without their usual heedless curiosity and need to explore.
After everyone had seen the gear recordings and commented on them, Danziger watched the group break up and head outside to their tents for the night. It was late now and he was tired.
All in all, no one could find a reason to disturb the inhabitants of the second biodome without provocation, and so no one was in favor of pursuing the matter further. They, instead, resolved to be more vigilant on watch during the night, and to stay clear of the northern valley when looking for food. Eden Advance would leave the others alone.
Getting up, Danziger crossed the room to wash out his coffee cup and place it on a shelf, ready for use at a later time.
The kids had been sent to bed hours ago and he had not seen either of them come poking their heads through the swinging doors to eavesdrop when they should have been asleep. It didn't necessarily mean True would be sleeping, of course, but it was possible.
Drying his hands on a piece of cloth near the wash bowl, he held on to it after he was finished and watched his own hands fiddle with it nervously.
In spite of the reassurances he`d given the others about the strangers at the other end of the valley, he was unsure if he had done the right thing in leaving them alone. Though he and the others had not recognized anyone in the camp, they had been a long way from it. They could have been mistaken.
There was something he knew that no one else in the group did. It was a secret he`d carried since the early days of the group`s existence on G889. Perhaps one day he would tell them all what he knew, share with them the news he`d gained from Les Firestein and Alex Wentworth in one of Alex`s few lucid moments before she had died. Until then, no one else needed to worry about whether or not their decision was the right one.
John put the cloth aside and went to his living quarters. His daughter was out like a light. He lay on his cot, and as he fell asleep he was silently cursing the Council and their role in creating this situation.
The End
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