((An Independent short story out of the Manuscript: ‘The Cadaverous Planets’ of which about seventy stories exist. This is three tales from that Manuscript) (all have been unpublished except for “Space Tomb” and now “The Yellow Planet”))
In Three Tales
The Yellow Planet
was as if the Yellow Planet knew what man had done
to the Blue Planet, also called Earth, and somewhere in its distance past
took measures to protect itself from mankind…! You are now about to read the
first three voyages mankind has taken to the Yellow Plane, all interconnecting.
The Undiscovered Planet
Tale One
1
The trip was nasty, they were 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, the very planet Siren’s mother was born on, and Ice Cap, its parallel moon, and the planet Cibara was nearby as well as 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 all the same, 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 record—speaking into a microphone type devise, 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).
The Yellow Planet had all the amenities Earth and SSARG hand, as far as life support goes, such as: air and green growth, and a brilliant blue sky, and a laborious sun, water was plentiful, but the soil appeared to be mixed with some kind of another force, radioactive vigor, as if it was a living force, as if it was a layer of skin, likened to quicksand.
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, it was in their path way, between Jupiter and Moiromma, and unexplored by anyone, so you see, it was quite tempting to make a landing.
The air was heavily moist, noticed Tangor, and Rognat as the two men, ventured outside of the spacecraft, other than that the atmospheric pressure, density was shown to be fine—livable, it simply had a little too much oxygen on hand and water vapor in the air and the ground somewhat soggy like on tundra, the temperature was in the ninety Fahrenheit area.
When they had landed, Siren stayed behind: inside the spacecraft (call it intuition), looking through the glass observer, a kind of porthole, a type of peril-glass, it showed how high the radiation level was, the sun’s emission discharge of energy onto the planet, and what within its view might be harmful to its inhabitants, in this case, to her, being half human and the other half Moirommalite, and Tangor being totally human, and Rognat from the planet Toso, with humanistic features: it recognized harmful substances to human organisms, substances in the environment that would infect their kind. Rognat and Tangor were excited to explore, and take the risk, Siren, as always, was thinking, planning and digesting everything insight—and hesitated, wanting a better analysis, and prognosis.
2
The further they roamed within the deep of the jungle type environment, leaving the spacecraft in an open field, the yellowier the vegetation became, almost nightmarish, and the atmospheric moister that fell was yellowish condensed, not much green in the living plant life now, but some. In essence, it was a lush tropical yellow jungle, with tints of green; swamp-like growth raised all about, and the mud was even yellowish-brown, fertile, a weird kind of yellow: “Let’s go,” Tangor had yelling, at the same time waving his hands for Siren to follow, but she remained on ship, and the two tall bull-like men, weather-beaten from the trip moved forward, deeper and deeper into the yellow-jungle. They never questioned Siren, she was not one to be questioned, accordingly, they simply left well enough alone, as if something was too be too dangerous, she’d let them know.
And so the two hunters, warriors, space travelers started their interspatial exploration of the planet, without Siren. Tangor had already planted the spaceship’s coat of arms in the ground, as a marker of sorts, and if necessary, for future explorations to recognize. 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 to his part of the planet, if indeed she wished to own it, or possess it—it was a passing thought anyway, not hers but theirs. And as they got deeper and deeper into this jungle type area, the ground underneath them got softer, muddier, harder to walk in, all the plant life oozed with yellow substance into the mud, making it its color, and as they stepped further into the undergrowth, a swirling mist encircled them, to the point they could hardly see what lay ahead.
The slimy ooze like substance that mingled within the mud crept about, in a bubbly form, like a living force, as they sank down further into its creep and eerie like cadaverous grips.
“This planet is cursed,” said Rognat to Tangor, “it’s like little fishes nibbling at me.”
“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—twenty feet long, as round as my waist, and are everywhere, the one Siren fought with, that was named Blaze, the giant viper with the saber tooth, but this one is no more than a foot long, thin as my thumb, with a nail like tooth stick out of its face like a sword fish.”
The viper in question, as all the vipers on the Yellow Planet were, had one razor sharp tooth, a saber tooth viper you might call it. And it was on a mission, to protect its environment: search and debilitate anything that might be foreign to its surroundings.
Tangor and Rognat were about the same age, the same built, except Tangor was more the warrior type, savage, the man with the spear kind of person, 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, towards the Greek side of life), eyes like a vipers, and he often wore a green flat hat covering the top of his head, and long hair thick black hair, brought back around his ears (where as Tangor´s hair was long and straggly). The ship belonged to Rognat; it was his space craft 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.
“Here’s a dry spot,” said Tangor, suggesting they might stop for a moment and gather their thoughts (in the meantime, Siren had discovered the clouds over head were high in methane, ammonia, they appeared out of nowhere, as if the planet created them just for those three so called tourists)(at the sometime, Rognat had mentioned to Tangor in passing about the wind picking up, when they had left the ship it was perhaps five-mph, not it was sixty, as if the planet was fixing a deadly plan for them, and the vegetation was rising, moving):
“I don’t like the looks of things, maybe it is good Siren remained behind, incase we get into a jam here!” Rognat told Tangor.
And then Tangor gave Rognat a look that said: let’s get going, and so they stood up, and peering over to each of their sides apprehensively—to see if they were being followed, they continued on.
3
After twenty-minutes, Tangor remarked, “Thought I saw something big move up ahead of us!” Tangor thought he saw movement in the foliage, they both followed the noise with a glance; they couldn’t find a thing once they got to where the noise had come from, or thought they had spotted some movement.
“Perhaps I’m mistaken, but let’s keep an eye out,” Tangor suggested.
Rognat grinned, and followed by submission and Tangor’s lead, now a little off track, but evidently going in the direction the planet wanted them to go—or seemingly so.
It now occurred to both of them; the planet was unlike anything they had encountered before—for once they were both a little scared of the unknown, Rognat thinking: ‘Perhaps we don’t belong here?’ A question to his second-self that little chamber inside the mind that talks back to you—now and then.
“I think Tangor,” said Rognat irritated, “this mud…or slime, this whatever yellow stuff, is alive, if undulated it might form something like tentacles I do believe, because it keeps pulling at me, as if that was its intent, something like tentacles. Now that I think of it, when the snake had that yellow substance on it—back a ways, the mud itself had energy gave the snake energy, when I kicked my foot, the mud came off, and off of the snake as well as the boot, and the snake lost that moisture I expect that substance, then it left, it lost its energy source, it actually got up and wiggled away.”
Then Tangor wiped the rest of the mud off his boots, and stepped, onto a large and long flat boulder, as if 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 in combat, a living weapon; consequently, a living force had entered it, an entity of some kind, biochemical; at which time Rognat went to rescue him—or his intend was to, 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 the same amount with the struggle, finding himself fighting for his life within the confines of this entangling jungle plant life.
The harder they fought, the more mud they kicked up and about, the thicker the branches become until they turned into claws like on a wild cat, pressed close and tight onto and around their bodies, the yellow substance monstrosity flooded their cerebellums as they both screamed for Siren.
4
“Help! Help!...” Tangor shouted for the umpteenth time, then lost his energy and voice, as did Rognat; they were several miles into the rainforest, a forest they called “Yellow Death” now.
They both became dizzy, their ankles tighten up—their muscles knotted, ligaments snapped in the knees, their bodies cramped up, as if in sinking in the Anarchic Waters, with the branches of the tree, softened like tentacles binding them like pythons, and those small little sharp toothed snakes now surrounded them, feeding off those two bodies like parasites; the trees roots soaked deep with that yellowish 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 and cramps from the mud, altered brain waves, and the snakes, it was all too much to bear, and now the vipers were biting them, no, not quite biting them, rather stabbing them with that long nail like sword it had for a nose, and their faces become distorted from the infection that was entering their bodies, but the creatures only had one tooth, like a sabertooth, a thick long needle like tooth, they plunged it into the legs of both invaders, sabertooth vipers, long and thin, but its needle like tooth only sunk into the flesh an inch or so, thank goodness their boots were high and of a hard thick leather.
“What are you doing to my leg?” exclaimed Rognat, looking down at the snake, as it was trying to rip his boots off, because only the end part of their tooth was harmful, and the pricking of the skin was not killing them fast enough, and they wanted to infect the leg deeper—to the bone marrow
One of the vipers had broken its tooth off, the one main snake that would not leave the two astronauts alone, it indicated 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. Hence, the loss of the sabertooth of the viper was a death sentence, but there were more to take its place.
Rognat was not the beast Tangor was, and Tangor was not the thinker Rognat was, and both knowing this, Tangor 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.
Said Tangor in an upbeat manner:
“Let go of everything your fear to lose will kill you, you got to save your physical and mental strength, to live until Siren finds us.”
5
(Captain’s Journal: by Siren) “It has been hours since Tangor and Rognat were in the deadly yellow jungle, they are resting now in the spacecraft —actually sleeping, they being my companions on this voyage to the Yellow Planet. The three of us will leave the planet in a few hours: what had happened was this: something in the yellow mud, chemicals of some kind had gotten into their blood stream, killing them slowly, as the trees and the snakes and this whole deadly planet started subduing them gradually; I, Siren had sensed something fomenting in the atmosphere, something that changed the compound of the mud, making it yellow, and infectious, some kind of chemical which by way of the mud got into their blood-stream, and this substance, according to the ships diagnostics is in almost everything on this side of the planet to a certain degree and can be reinforced by compounding it with alike kind, and when this mud touches whatever it touches, it creates a chemical reaction within the system it touches, be it mud, or foliage, or animal or human, or alien, and that once put into our pathway, puts us into harms way—in this case infecting my comrades, it even frightened Rognat into a childlike behavior, psychologically. I, myself, blustered into fatigue trying to rescue them, my body was resistant to the full strength of the mud, and in the process having witnessed the grotesque horror after realizing my body was in itself an antidote to the planet’s madness, that was when I came searching for them, I suppose because I am one third-human, one third-Moiromma, and one third Cibaranite (being part of this solar system), it affected me less, my system that is, and I smashed through the dead and pouring awful yellowish mud with little effect, that is to say, the infectious mud did seep into my blood stream but my mingled cells rescued me like a storm trooper, and I gave both Tangor and Rognat, a glass of wine with my blood in it, as a remedy if not cure, I expect they will be ill for some time yet.”
Tangor shook his head slightly resting in bed with his eyes open, now watching the last of Siren’s notes being logged into the ship’s computer system, and he laughed, as if he had lost his senses, but not his sense of humor, “What’s so funny?” asked Siren.
“You’re more poisonous than the snakes; this wine you gave me is so potent, that I feel I slept for two days!”
“Pert near,” said Siren, and laughed, looking at Rognat above him in the upper bunk, saying, “Your partner is still sleeping!”
Then Siren looked about the craft, outside of the craft, feeling the take off would no longer effect either one of her companions, said with a grin, “Hold tight, we’re going to take off,” and there was a big thrust underneath them, and a blast, as the spacecraft ascended off from the surface of the Yellow Planet.
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 created in the seventy plus stories, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. This story was written: 8-6-2008, and the follow up story “Fireside of the Yellow Planet,” right afterwards. The third and last one was written a year later, and misplaced. Reedited 9-1-2010
Fireside
Of the Yellow Planet
(The Russian Account)
Tale Two
1
(A.D., 2059) “If someone is reading this, then it means you have been to the fireside of this Yellow Planet, or you know someone who has, someone who may have access to the journal account of the first mission to this dark side of this planet. Read this carefully if you plan on going there, because it is a living and dangerous planet. Historically, this would be then, the second time humans have been on this planet, recorded anyway, and the first time human eyes have seen the fireside, if indeed they dare to go to that side, I myself seen it only from a distance in space.” Tangor
Tangor of Earth, recorded the first mission to the Yellow Planet, and he had left a warning for all those whom may follow thereafter, and I have just given you, the verbal recording in writing, he made.
“Never mind about the warning,” said Igor, “the prior expedition was by three crackpots.”
The other three comrades on this new expedition, nodded their heads okay, but the warning was to the point, not produced by imaginative invading earthmen, who wanted the whole planet for themselves, and they knew this, and all three along with Igor knew well the lore or facts of the first mission a decade earlier; in any case, the first part of their mission on the Yellow Planet was now in motion, they were venturing into the deep woods as Tangor and Rognat had done a decade before them.
Talcoss (scientist), David (copilot), and Ximena (female engineer), the captain’s crew (Igor, the Captain and main pilot), of the Russian Space Federation, walked into the thick of the forest, the same one Tangor and Rognat had, and was subdued by the leafage just like they were, by the living organisms thereof.
Igor had taken a different path, but eventually turned back to see how his comrades were within this living and diabolic rainforest, he also got drowsy, and overheated much like his predecessors, and after a long while he saw his three comrades far-off in the distance, barely standing, and once next to them, ordered them to go back to the ship, as he quickly went back to the spacecraft himself, perhaps taking at this point into consideration, Tangor’s message—but a little bit too late.
To no one’s awareness, Igor had left a bottle of natural medicine in the spaceship for just such emergencies—a medicine to regenerate if not repair the damaged cellular structure one may encounter on an alien plant such as this (a mixture with Moiromma blood, like Siren’s along with an added recipe from the Central Jungles of Peru, Satipo), one of pure bee honey, cactus, and whisky, believe to cure cancers, as well as internal bleeding, and many other kinds of cellular damage, once on the ship he drank it and lost consciousness, when he awoke he discovered his three partners were all dead—somewhat knowing this was a possibility, his medicine had soaked into his bladder, saturated it, saved him, whereas it was just the other way around for his comrades who had no such medicine to save them, the deadly fumes from the leafage on the planet life, and its yellowish muddy substance, thereabouts, soaked into the bladders of Igor’s shipmates, and killed them slowly like poisoned water.
Why he didn’t tell his mates he had the medicine—the best I can come up with is—because it was costly, and there was only enough for one person’s recovery—complete that is, and immediate recovery, or perhaps had all four used the medicine, only the strongest would have survived, and to Igor, those odds were not good enough, as a result taking it all for himself, the odds were in his favor, so he must have figured.
As we all know at present, He was foretold of the plant’s deadly vapors—not quite believing it of course—but what was more important he survived, and believed it now. And for the moment, this was priority for the Federation, that is: how to survive on this deadly planet, and then to go to the opposite side, the fireside and bring back a description of it, map it out if possible, which had never been accomplished by the first mission, for it had never been seen by human eyes, not even Tangor’s or anyone from the United States, or any other country on earth, or to any human knowledge, not by any other alien race likewise, only Russia would be the first—and thus, could claim it in total.
2
As the spacecraft was given instructions into its internal memory banks, and put on its computerized autopilot drive, the directives were for the vessel to circle the planet robotically until otherwise notified, as Igor attended to his anxiety, that is, his close call to death; consequently, the ship orbited closer to the planet’s surface than expected, being pulled involuntarily by the planet’s huge iron malleable core within the stomach of the planet, in the plant’s center, hence, the gravitational pull was equal plus two, to earth’s; something misconstrued by the prior mission they had though it to be less than earth’s.
After collecting his thoughts, he sensed something was wrong, very wrong on the ship, only to discover he was right, the roof, the spacecraft’s roof, was leaking a yellowish moist substance, it had started to eat its way through the ships metal structure, even on the portside, from the outside in: a substance that was plentiful on the opposite side of the Yellow Planet, where he had just been, had now started to grow stem like tentacles—he could feel the constricting of his heart, he closed his eyes, the realization crept into him, that he was not going to leave this planet alive. It was as if the planet itself was taking preventive measures in stopping this particular ship’s return, as if it might alter its own future, countering its potential doomed fate, should it be allowed to leave, and suffer as the earth has suffered for so long with mankind’s neglect, the planet seemed to have had some kind of insight, foresight, foreknowledge, doomed prophecy in place should this one ship escape its grips. As if it didn’t want the fate man had placed upon earth, it’s slowly but totally infecting its atmosphere and desecration of is soil, waters, and animal life, along with its green life. It would appear, this planet might have been in a different family of planets or solar systems, but like to like they all knew of one another, if you know what I mean: rumors of the Galaxies, if indeed one can visualize a planet as a living source.
3
As Igor looked out his port window, he could see the fireside of the planet, it was all it was made up to be, the sun seemed to be baking the planet alive, not much of a moon to provide shade, and the water on the planet, as he could see from his monitors, was boiling, as in streams and lakes and so forth, no waterways untouched by the sun’s rays. He wanted to land the spacecraft—while he could, but where? Then he could scrape the living mud off his ship, and then leave as fast as he came, if not quicker; but time was of the essence, the mud was eating into the ship like rats clawing through cardboard.
But if he landed, it would have to be in a boiling lake of fire, yet if he didn’t, he would soon be among the freezing black surroundings of space, and be frozen like a popsicle himself—quite a dilemma. In any case, the heat—he figured perhaps that would kill the substance on the outer surface of the space vessel because he couldn’t see a living green thing below. He couldn’t turn the spaceship towards earth either, the gravitational pull was too great on the ship, and he’d have to use an immense amount of atomic fuel which was irreplaceable at this stage of the voyage and just barely enough to make it back to earth, of course landing and taking off again put him into the same dilemma; it was one or the other, and for the most part, perhaps the ship may never have been able to have taken off again, especially with holes in it now. The alternative was becoming more likely. And by luck, he might be able to be pulled by the comet Sedna thereafter should he be able to actually take off again, it was in the same orbit path, as the Yellow Planet, at least to a certain degree, and for a certain amount of its circling partway to and through the two solar systems, and the ship could veer off at a certain point to earth’s moon, making its way, at least part of the way, back to Earth, and thus, saving fuel, and landing on the dark side of the moon where there was a space station—all this was going through his had. If only he could transport himself into a living fly, or snap his eyelids and be back home in good ole Russia. But it all looked pretty gloomy from where he was.
By and large, He, Igor had to think fast, before the yellow mud ate its way all the way through into the ship’s inner guts, crippling it—and crashing.
Other thoughts came to his mind were: on one side of the planet, there was much oxygen, he felt on this side there was very little, and if a hole was in the ship, he’d lose what oxygen he had, and would be forced to land on the suffocating side of the planet, the fireside. His best scenario for survival was to land the craft, and let the heat do the work for him, and hope he could reach orbit again, if not, he had other plans, not good ones, but plans nonetheless—so he told himself. Accordingly, his conclusion was to land in the lake of fire. And when he did land, the fire never burnt the mud off, it was as if the planet itself was protecting its own kind, the flames of the fire never touched the spacecraft, and there is where Igor remained, in a hot scorching tomb.
Ominous Intent, on:
On the Yellow Planet
(Previous name: Crash Landing)
Tale Three
1
(A.D., 2064) There was a crash landing on the Yellow Planet; it was from the spacecraft, The Avelino, a space vehicle manned by Peruvians and Americans, and Russians alike, a joint adventure, to try and land on the comet Sedna as large as earth’s moon or nearly as large, and which had the same earthly inter solar system orbit as the Yellow Planet. The Spacecraft was pulled into the orbit around the Yellow Planet, with its heavy gradational pull, and then forced it to burst from the sky, and crashed onto its surface; upon landing, burning the craft’s wiring severely.
(The space vessel had started to roar, and unkindly howl, choppily, the ship went down in bloody glory, straight down across the yellow forest and over the fireside of the planet, to the northern part of the planet.)
It was really a fantastic account of a spacecraft surviving such a landing, and once on the surface, the spaceship’s outside cameras vividly brought to the screen in the far-off distance, crescent shaped shadows, the planet’s inhabitants into the cockpit of the craft, as the wind throw sand, rattled sand and debris against the stern of the vessel.
Now, all four astronauts observed, that is—started to examine, the amazing extraterrestrial creatures that roamed about the open field, never before seen on this planet by human eyes. The four astronauts mission blotched, they formed a new one, intrigued by the features of the living things, thus, they started to take an inventory of them, notes and photographs, and in the interim trying to repair the electrical damage if possible of the craft, and if possible, promising to send the data back via radio transmission, or any other way they could think of once they could fix what needed to be fixed—which included their communicational transmitting equipment.
Captain Murray Wright (Major in the US Air force, Pilot and scientist, thirty-two years old), and his fiancée scientist, Isabella Jeffries ((PH.D, from Harvard, and undergraduate work at Colombia)(zoologist, biologist, and computer science, twenty-seven years old)), both Americans on board the spacecraft; along with Filemon Cardenas from the Los Andes Observatory in the high mountains—the Andes (astronomer, Ph.D., and Ed.D. in Education, forty-one years old), by the side of Russian Astronaut, Anatolee Silluak copilot, and Colonel in the Russian Federation, sixty-one years old, Engineer, and observer and adviser to the Captain.
As they looked upon the desert like grasslands of the Yellow Planet’s plains, they sow much, and their zooming-in cameras (much like telescopes) picked up a great deal of movement. But they knew the deadly forces of the Fireside part of the planet, the one Igor Manning, of the Russian Expiation of A.D. 2059, and the mission ten-years prior to that that nearly took the life of the two other astronauts by the deadly foliage and forces within the yellow mud. Tangor and Rognat, and the Moirommalit, Siren, as she was called, and famed throughout the known worlds for her exploits, knowing this, they were hesitant in every move they made, although they were more into the equatorial part of the planet this time.
“Journal Notes by the Captain of the spaceship: ‘The Avelino’ August 11 thru Sept 11, 2064. We crashed landed on the Yellow Planet three weeks ago, and our engineer has been working daily on repairing, or trying to find parts to repair the wiring of the spacecraft, we do have life support, and our food is in good shape—we can last years if need be, and our cameras are working. We presently are observing the animal inhabitants of this plain, along with three other species. And I shall explain to you in full these observations, we only leave the spacecraft for our journeys in the day time, into its equatorial center. If we do not return, Isabella will transmit the happenings and perhaps parish thereafter—hoping once we fix the transmitting equipment, it will all be sent to you, alive or not.
“As I said, there are three species, one I call the HRYP (Homo-erectus of the Yellow Planet); the second being NYP (The Neanderthal), and the animal like hybrids, such as snakes, some birds, and beasts.”
2
“Journal Notes from scientist, Isabella Jeffries ((PH.D, from Harvard, and undergraduate work at Colombia) (zoologist, biologist, and computer science, twenty-seven years old)):
“As I lie here pending death, which slowly engulfs me like a dark shadow, the pageantry of glory, of space exploration has also faded into nothingness. Yes, I have been eaten alive by my own failing mind, virtually a prisoner in silenced on this spacecraft.
My comrades came back from several of their journeys, out into the plains of this planet, came back filled with dreary, disease-racked systems, from the beings called Neanderthal beasts that the captain has named them so. The last time they came, I had visible manifestations of their already diseased bodies, and I would not let them into the spacecraft. Their so called walking, or strolling spirits –have under this brief and temporary time, off and on, have come to the spacecraft to haunt me, waiting for me to leave, for these past fifty-years, they have now turned black, unstable masses of blackness, like shadows, that circle the ship waiting for me to leave, to get their revenge, their souls cannot sleep.
“Their history is now my history, from the first and only landing of over fifty-years ago, I am now seventy-five years old, a product of this planet’s degenerate civilization, dim as it is— but it is none of these things that I should speak, or transmit as I have transmitted for all these years to planet earth, what needs to be said is simple, the Neanderthals are slayers, not lovers of life, they have brought mud from the foliage side of the planet, when they see things they feel and think are distorted things, such as humans, they swim in the mud to become infected—so they can infect; they know they will die thereafter, but they seem to be grisly about it, even though underlying reality, like salmon, swimming upstream to return to their hatchers, even though they know impending death resides there.
They also know I get only revulsion from them, that my world is different from theirs, over the years I have received enough feedback—one way or another—from them to conclude that they feel my blind hate for their race. They seem to use me for entertainment, they bring their young to look at me as if I am a monkey in a cage, because all they need to do is crash open the door, or put some of that yellow mud on the surface of the ship and it would eat right through it.
“It was thus, long ago that it seems, now that I’ve seen these yellow-eyed Neanderthals for decades, when I first walked alone, out into the plains for food or whatever, and westward, a wild and wasteland and no more, I was rapped by one of those beasts, he also returns every year to see me with my child, which he cares for. But I never set foot outside of this spacecraft anymore. The child has blazing blue eyes, trampled snow covered skin. Redder lips than me.
“I think of the next expedition that will come here, and they will come, especially to meet this ominous society, eye to eye, they will come fear factor or not, for exploration is endlessly driven by man’s restlessness. (Earth Year, AD 2126)
Note for Part One of Two of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stores this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here “The Yellow Planet,” 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 created and used, and created to his liking, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008 (Reedited, 8-2009 and 11-2009)
Note for part two: Written, 8-6-2008; this is the second story of the Yellow Planet); modified 8-25-2008. (Reedited, 8-2009/11-2009)
Note for Part three to the “Yellow Planet” which goes by the subtitle of: “Crashing landing on the Yellow Planet” written in part on 8-11-2009, in the morning, in Huancayo, Peru; completed, 9-19-2009, reedited 11-2010; and renamed, Ominous Intent on the Yellow Planet.
Reedited all three tales: 9-2010
to the Blue Planet, also called Earth, and somewhere in its distance past
took measures to protect itself from mankind…! You are now about to read the
first three voyages mankind has taken to the Yellow Plane, all interconnecting.
The Undiscovered Planet
Tale One
1
The trip was nasty, they were 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, the very planet Siren’s mother was born on, and Ice Cap, its parallel moon, and the planet Cibara was nearby as well as 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 all the same, 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 record—speaking into a microphone type devise, 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).
The Yellow Planet had all the amenities Earth and SSARG hand, as far as life support goes, such as: air and green growth, and a brilliant blue sky, and a laborious sun, water was plentiful, but the soil appeared to be mixed with some kind of another force, radioactive vigor, as if it was a living force, as if it was a layer of skin, likened to quicksand.
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, it was in their path way, between Jupiter and Moiromma, and unexplored by anyone, so you see, it was quite tempting to make a landing.
The air was heavily moist, noticed Tangor, and Rognat as the two men, ventured outside of the spacecraft, other than that the atmospheric pressure, density was shown to be fine—livable, it simply had a little too much oxygen on hand and water vapor in the air and the ground somewhat soggy like on tundra, the temperature was in the ninety Fahrenheit area.
When they had landed, Siren stayed behind: inside the spacecraft (call it intuition), looking through the glass observer, a kind of porthole, a type of peril-glass, it showed how high the radiation level was, the sun’s emission discharge of energy onto the planet, and what within its view might be harmful to its inhabitants, in this case, to her, being half human and the other half Moirommalite, and Tangor being totally human, and Rognat from the planet Toso, with humanistic features: it recognized harmful substances to human organisms, substances in the environment that would infect their kind. Rognat and Tangor were excited to explore, and take the risk, Siren, as always, was thinking, planning and digesting everything insight—and hesitated, wanting a better analysis, and prognosis.
2
The further they roamed within the deep of the jungle type environment, leaving the spacecraft in an open field, the yellowier the vegetation became, almost nightmarish, and the atmospheric moister that fell was yellowish condensed, not much green in the living plant life now, but some. In essence, it was a lush tropical yellow jungle, with tints of green; swamp-like growth raised all about, and the mud was even yellowish-brown, fertile, a weird kind of yellow: “Let’s go,” Tangor had yelling, at the same time waving his hands for Siren to follow, but she remained on ship, and the two tall bull-like men, weather-beaten from the trip moved forward, deeper and deeper into the yellow-jungle. They never questioned Siren, she was not one to be questioned, accordingly, they simply left well enough alone, as if something was too be too dangerous, she’d let them know.
And so the two hunters, warriors, space travelers started their interspatial exploration of the planet, without Siren. Tangor had already planted the spaceship’s coat of arms in the ground, as a marker of sorts, and if necessary, for future explorations to recognize. 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 to his part of the planet, if indeed she wished to own it, or possess it—it was a passing thought anyway, not hers but theirs. And as they got deeper and deeper into this jungle type area, the ground underneath them got softer, muddier, harder to walk in, all the plant life oozed with yellow substance into the mud, making it its color, and as they stepped further into the undergrowth, a swirling mist encircled them, to the point they could hardly see what lay ahead.
The slimy ooze like substance that mingled within the mud crept about, in a bubbly form, like a living force, as they sank down further into its creep and eerie like cadaverous grips.
“This planet is cursed,” said Rognat to Tangor, “it’s like little fishes nibbling at me.”
“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—twenty feet long, as round as my waist, and are everywhere, the one Siren fought with, that was named Blaze, the giant viper with the saber tooth, but this one is no more than a foot long, thin as my thumb, with a nail like tooth stick out of its face like a sword fish.”
The viper in question, as all the vipers on the Yellow Planet were, had one razor sharp tooth, a saber tooth viper you might call it. And it was on a mission, to protect its environment: search and debilitate anything that might be foreign to its surroundings.
Tangor and Rognat were about the same age, the same built, except Tangor was more the warrior type, savage, the man with the spear kind of person, 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, towards the Greek side of life), eyes like a vipers, and he often wore a green flat hat covering the top of his head, and long hair thick black hair, brought back around his ears (where as Tangor´s hair was long and straggly). The ship belonged to Rognat; it was his space craft 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.
“Here’s a dry spot,” said Tangor, suggesting they might stop for a moment and gather their thoughts (in the meantime, Siren had discovered the clouds over head were high in methane, ammonia, they appeared out of nowhere, as if the planet created them just for those three so called tourists)(at the sometime, Rognat had mentioned to Tangor in passing about the wind picking up, when they had left the ship it was perhaps five-mph, not it was sixty, as if the planet was fixing a deadly plan for them, and the vegetation was rising, moving):
“I don’t like the looks of things, maybe it is good Siren remained behind, incase we get into a jam here!” Rognat told Tangor.
And then Tangor gave Rognat a look that said: let’s get going, and so they stood up, and peering over to each of their sides apprehensively—to see if they were being followed, they continued on.
3
After twenty-minutes, Tangor remarked, “Thought I saw something big move up ahead of us!” Tangor thought he saw movement in the foliage, they both followed the noise with a glance; they couldn’t find a thing once they got to where the noise had come from, or thought they had spotted some movement.
“Perhaps I’m mistaken, but let’s keep an eye out,” Tangor suggested.
Rognat grinned, and followed by submission and Tangor’s lead, now a little off track, but evidently going in the direction the planet wanted them to go—or seemingly so.
It now occurred to both of them; the planet was unlike anything they had encountered before—for once they were both a little scared of the unknown, Rognat thinking: ‘Perhaps we don’t belong here?’ A question to his second-self that little chamber inside the mind that talks back to you—now and then.
“I think Tangor,” said Rognat irritated, “this mud…or slime, this whatever yellow stuff, is alive, if undulated it might form something like tentacles I do believe, because it keeps pulling at me, as if that was its intent, something like tentacles. Now that I think of it, when the snake had that yellow substance on it—back a ways, the mud itself had energy gave the snake energy, when I kicked my foot, the mud came off, and off of the snake as well as the boot, and the snake lost that moisture I expect that substance, then it left, it lost its energy source, it actually got up and wiggled away.”
Then Tangor wiped the rest of the mud off his boots, and stepped, onto a large and long flat boulder, as if 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 in combat, a living weapon; consequently, a living force had entered it, an entity of some kind, biochemical; at which time Rognat went to rescue him—or his intend was to, 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 the same amount with the struggle, finding himself fighting for his life within the confines of this entangling jungle plant life.
The harder they fought, the more mud they kicked up and about, the thicker the branches become until they turned into claws like on a wild cat, pressed close and tight onto and around their bodies, the yellow substance monstrosity flooded their cerebellums as they both screamed for Siren.
4
“Help! Help!...” Tangor shouted for the umpteenth time, then lost his energy and voice, as did Rognat; they were several miles into the rainforest, a forest they called “Yellow Death” now.
They both became dizzy, their ankles tighten up—their muscles knotted, ligaments snapped in the knees, their bodies cramped up, as if in sinking in the Anarchic Waters, with the branches of the tree, softened like tentacles binding them like pythons, and those small little sharp toothed snakes now surrounded them, feeding off those two bodies like parasites; the trees roots soaked deep with that yellowish 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 and cramps from the mud, altered brain waves, and the snakes, it was all too much to bear, and now the vipers were biting them, no, not quite biting them, rather stabbing them with that long nail like sword it had for a nose, and their faces become distorted from the infection that was entering their bodies, but the creatures only had one tooth, like a sabertooth, a thick long needle like tooth, they plunged it into the legs of both invaders, sabertooth vipers, long and thin, but its needle like tooth only sunk into the flesh an inch or so, thank goodness their boots were high and of a hard thick leather.
“What are you doing to my leg?” exclaimed Rognat, looking down at the snake, as it was trying to rip his boots off, because only the end part of their tooth was harmful, and the pricking of the skin was not killing them fast enough, and they wanted to infect the leg deeper—to the bone marrow
One of the vipers had broken its tooth off, the one main snake that would not leave the two astronauts alone, it indicated 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. Hence, the loss of the sabertooth of the viper was a death sentence, but there were more to take its place.
Rognat was not the beast Tangor was, and Tangor was not the thinker Rognat was, and both knowing this, Tangor 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.
Said Tangor in an upbeat manner:
“Let go of everything your fear to lose will kill you, you got to save your physical and mental strength, to live until Siren finds us.”
5
(Captain’s Journal: by Siren) “It has been hours since Tangor and Rognat were in the deadly yellow jungle, they are resting now in the spacecraft —actually sleeping, they being my companions on this voyage to the Yellow Planet. The three of us will leave the planet in a few hours: what had happened was this: something in the yellow mud, chemicals of some kind had gotten into their blood stream, killing them slowly, as the trees and the snakes and this whole deadly planet started subduing them gradually; I, Siren had sensed something fomenting in the atmosphere, something that changed the compound of the mud, making it yellow, and infectious, some kind of chemical which by way of the mud got into their blood-stream, and this substance, according to the ships diagnostics is in almost everything on this side of the planet to a certain degree and can be reinforced by compounding it with alike kind, and when this mud touches whatever it touches, it creates a chemical reaction within the system it touches, be it mud, or foliage, or animal or human, or alien, and that once put into our pathway, puts us into harms way—in this case infecting my comrades, it even frightened Rognat into a childlike behavior, psychologically. I, myself, blustered into fatigue trying to rescue them, my body was resistant to the full strength of the mud, and in the process having witnessed the grotesque horror after realizing my body was in itself an antidote to the planet’s madness, that was when I came searching for them, I suppose because I am one third-human, one third-Moiromma, and one third Cibaranite (being part of this solar system), it affected me less, my system that is, and I smashed through the dead and pouring awful yellowish mud with little effect, that is to say, the infectious mud did seep into my blood stream but my mingled cells rescued me like a storm trooper, and I gave both Tangor and Rognat, a glass of wine with my blood in it, as a remedy if not cure, I expect they will be ill for some time yet.”
Tangor shook his head slightly resting in bed with his eyes open, now watching the last of Siren’s notes being logged into the ship’s computer system, and he laughed, as if he had lost his senses, but not his sense of humor, “What’s so funny?” asked Siren.
“You’re more poisonous than the snakes; this wine you gave me is so potent, that I feel I slept for two days!”
“Pert near,” said Siren, and laughed, looking at Rognat above him in the upper bunk, saying, “Your partner is still sleeping!”
Then Siren looked about the craft, outside of the craft, feeling the take off would no longer effect either one of her companions, said with a grin, “Hold tight, we’re going to take off,” and there was a big thrust underneath them, and a blast, as the spacecraft ascended off from the surface of the Yellow Planet.
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 created in the seventy plus stories, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. This story was written: 8-6-2008, and the follow up story “Fireside of the Yellow Planet,” right afterwards. The third and last one was written a year later, and misplaced. Reedited 9-1-2010
Fireside
Of the Yellow Planet
(The Russian Account)
Tale Two
1
(A.D., 2059) “If someone is reading this, then it means you have been to the fireside of this Yellow Planet, or you know someone who has, someone who may have access to the journal account of the first mission to this dark side of this planet. Read this carefully if you plan on going there, because it is a living and dangerous planet. Historically, this would be then, the second time humans have been on this planet, recorded anyway, and the first time human eyes have seen the fireside, if indeed they dare to go to that side, I myself seen it only from a distance in space.” Tangor
Tangor of Earth, recorded the first mission to the Yellow Planet, and he had left a warning for all those whom may follow thereafter, and I have just given you, the verbal recording in writing, he made.
“Never mind about the warning,” said Igor, “the prior expedition was by three crackpots.”
The other three comrades on this new expedition, nodded their heads okay, but the warning was to the point, not produced by imaginative invading earthmen, who wanted the whole planet for themselves, and they knew this, and all three along with Igor knew well the lore or facts of the first mission a decade earlier; in any case, the first part of their mission on the Yellow Planet was now in motion, they were venturing into the deep woods as Tangor and Rognat had done a decade before them.
Talcoss (scientist), David (copilot), and Ximena (female engineer), the captain’s crew (Igor, the Captain and main pilot), of the Russian Space Federation, walked into the thick of the forest, the same one Tangor and Rognat had, and was subdued by the leafage just like they were, by the living organisms thereof.
Igor had taken a different path, but eventually turned back to see how his comrades were within this living and diabolic rainforest, he also got drowsy, and overheated much like his predecessors, and after a long while he saw his three comrades far-off in the distance, barely standing, and once next to them, ordered them to go back to the ship, as he quickly went back to the spacecraft himself, perhaps taking at this point into consideration, Tangor’s message—but a little bit too late.
To no one’s awareness, Igor had left a bottle of natural medicine in the spaceship for just such emergencies—a medicine to regenerate if not repair the damaged cellular structure one may encounter on an alien plant such as this (a mixture with Moiromma blood, like Siren’s along with an added recipe from the Central Jungles of Peru, Satipo), one of pure bee honey, cactus, and whisky, believe to cure cancers, as well as internal bleeding, and many other kinds of cellular damage, once on the ship he drank it and lost consciousness, when he awoke he discovered his three partners were all dead—somewhat knowing this was a possibility, his medicine had soaked into his bladder, saturated it, saved him, whereas it was just the other way around for his comrades who had no such medicine to save them, the deadly fumes from the leafage on the planet life, and its yellowish muddy substance, thereabouts, soaked into the bladders of Igor’s shipmates, and killed them slowly like poisoned water.
Why he didn’t tell his mates he had the medicine—the best I can come up with is—because it was costly, and there was only enough for one person’s recovery—complete that is, and immediate recovery, or perhaps had all four used the medicine, only the strongest would have survived, and to Igor, those odds were not good enough, as a result taking it all for himself, the odds were in his favor, so he must have figured.
As we all know at present, He was foretold of the plant’s deadly vapors—not quite believing it of course—but what was more important he survived, and believed it now. And for the moment, this was priority for the Federation, that is: how to survive on this deadly planet, and then to go to the opposite side, the fireside and bring back a description of it, map it out if possible, which had never been accomplished by the first mission, for it had never been seen by human eyes, not even Tangor’s or anyone from the United States, or any other country on earth, or to any human knowledge, not by any other alien race likewise, only Russia would be the first—and thus, could claim it in total.
2
As the spacecraft was given instructions into its internal memory banks, and put on its computerized autopilot drive, the directives were for the vessel to circle the planet robotically until otherwise notified, as Igor attended to his anxiety, that is, his close call to death; consequently, the ship orbited closer to the planet’s surface than expected, being pulled involuntarily by the planet’s huge iron malleable core within the stomach of the planet, in the plant’s center, hence, the gravitational pull was equal plus two, to earth’s; something misconstrued by the prior mission they had though it to be less than earth’s.
After collecting his thoughts, he sensed something was wrong, very wrong on the ship, only to discover he was right, the roof, the spacecraft’s roof, was leaking a yellowish moist substance, it had started to eat its way through the ships metal structure, even on the portside, from the outside in: a substance that was plentiful on the opposite side of the Yellow Planet, where he had just been, had now started to grow stem like tentacles—he could feel the constricting of his heart, he closed his eyes, the realization crept into him, that he was not going to leave this planet alive. It was as if the planet itself was taking preventive measures in stopping this particular ship’s return, as if it might alter its own future, countering its potential doomed fate, should it be allowed to leave, and suffer as the earth has suffered for so long with mankind’s neglect, the planet seemed to have had some kind of insight, foresight, foreknowledge, doomed prophecy in place should this one ship escape its grips. As if it didn’t want the fate man had placed upon earth, it’s slowly but totally infecting its atmosphere and desecration of is soil, waters, and animal life, along with its green life. It would appear, this planet might have been in a different family of planets or solar systems, but like to like they all knew of one another, if you know what I mean: rumors of the Galaxies, if indeed one can visualize a planet as a living source.
3
As Igor looked out his port window, he could see the fireside of the planet, it was all it was made up to be, the sun seemed to be baking the planet alive, not much of a moon to provide shade, and the water on the planet, as he could see from his monitors, was boiling, as in streams and lakes and so forth, no waterways untouched by the sun’s rays. He wanted to land the spacecraft—while he could, but where? Then he could scrape the living mud off his ship, and then leave as fast as he came, if not quicker; but time was of the essence, the mud was eating into the ship like rats clawing through cardboard.
But if he landed, it would have to be in a boiling lake of fire, yet if he didn’t, he would soon be among the freezing black surroundings of space, and be frozen like a popsicle himself—quite a dilemma. In any case, the heat—he figured perhaps that would kill the substance on the outer surface of the space vessel because he couldn’t see a living green thing below. He couldn’t turn the spaceship towards earth either, the gravitational pull was too great on the ship, and he’d have to use an immense amount of atomic fuel which was irreplaceable at this stage of the voyage and just barely enough to make it back to earth, of course landing and taking off again put him into the same dilemma; it was one or the other, and for the most part, perhaps the ship may never have been able to have taken off again, especially with holes in it now. The alternative was becoming more likely. And by luck, he might be able to be pulled by the comet Sedna thereafter should he be able to actually take off again, it was in the same orbit path, as the Yellow Planet, at least to a certain degree, and for a certain amount of its circling partway to and through the two solar systems, and the ship could veer off at a certain point to earth’s moon, making its way, at least part of the way, back to Earth, and thus, saving fuel, and landing on the dark side of the moon where there was a space station—all this was going through his had. If only he could transport himself into a living fly, or snap his eyelids and be back home in good ole Russia. But it all looked pretty gloomy from where he was.
By and large, He, Igor had to think fast, before the yellow mud ate its way all the way through into the ship’s inner guts, crippling it—and crashing.
Other thoughts came to his mind were: on one side of the planet, there was much oxygen, he felt on this side there was very little, and if a hole was in the ship, he’d lose what oxygen he had, and would be forced to land on the suffocating side of the planet, the fireside. His best scenario for survival was to land the craft, and let the heat do the work for him, and hope he could reach orbit again, if not, he had other plans, not good ones, but plans nonetheless—so he told himself. Accordingly, his conclusion was to land in the lake of fire. And when he did land, the fire never burnt the mud off, it was as if the planet itself was protecting its own kind, the flames of the fire never touched the spacecraft, and there is where Igor remained, in a hot scorching tomb.
Ominous Intent, on:
On the Yellow Planet
(Previous name: Crash Landing)
Tale Three
1
(A.D., 2064) There was a crash landing on the Yellow Planet; it was from the spacecraft, The Avelino, a space vehicle manned by Peruvians and Americans, and Russians alike, a joint adventure, to try and land on the comet Sedna as large as earth’s moon or nearly as large, and which had the same earthly inter solar system orbit as the Yellow Planet. The Spacecraft was pulled into the orbit around the Yellow Planet, with its heavy gradational pull, and then forced it to burst from the sky, and crashed onto its surface; upon landing, burning the craft’s wiring severely.
(The space vessel had started to roar, and unkindly howl, choppily, the ship went down in bloody glory, straight down across the yellow forest and over the fireside of the planet, to the northern part of the planet.)
It was really a fantastic account of a spacecraft surviving such a landing, and once on the surface, the spaceship’s outside cameras vividly brought to the screen in the far-off distance, crescent shaped shadows, the planet’s inhabitants into the cockpit of the craft, as the wind throw sand, rattled sand and debris against the stern of the vessel.
Now, all four astronauts observed, that is—started to examine, the amazing extraterrestrial creatures that roamed about the open field, never before seen on this planet by human eyes. The four astronauts mission blotched, they formed a new one, intrigued by the features of the living things, thus, they started to take an inventory of them, notes and photographs, and in the interim trying to repair the electrical damage if possible of the craft, and if possible, promising to send the data back via radio transmission, or any other way they could think of once they could fix what needed to be fixed—which included their communicational transmitting equipment.
Captain Murray Wright (Major in the US Air force, Pilot and scientist, thirty-two years old), and his fiancée scientist, Isabella Jeffries ((PH.D, from Harvard, and undergraduate work at Colombia)(zoologist, biologist, and computer science, twenty-seven years old)), both Americans on board the spacecraft; along with Filemon Cardenas from the Los Andes Observatory in the high mountains—the Andes (astronomer, Ph.D., and Ed.D. in Education, forty-one years old), by the side of Russian Astronaut, Anatolee Silluak copilot, and Colonel in the Russian Federation, sixty-one years old, Engineer, and observer and adviser to the Captain.
As they looked upon the desert like grasslands of the Yellow Planet’s plains, they sow much, and their zooming-in cameras (much like telescopes) picked up a great deal of movement. But they knew the deadly forces of the Fireside part of the planet, the one Igor Manning, of the Russian Expiation of A.D. 2059, and the mission ten-years prior to that that nearly took the life of the two other astronauts by the deadly foliage and forces within the yellow mud. Tangor and Rognat, and the Moirommalit, Siren, as she was called, and famed throughout the known worlds for her exploits, knowing this, they were hesitant in every move they made, although they were more into the equatorial part of the planet this time.
“Journal Notes by the Captain of the spaceship: ‘The Avelino’ August 11 thru Sept 11, 2064. We crashed landed on the Yellow Planet three weeks ago, and our engineer has been working daily on repairing, or trying to find parts to repair the wiring of the spacecraft, we do have life support, and our food is in good shape—we can last years if need be, and our cameras are working. We presently are observing the animal inhabitants of this plain, along with three other species. And I shall explain to you in full these observations, we only leave the spacecraft for our journeys in the day time, into its equatorial center. If we do not return, Isabella will transmit the happenings and perhaps parish thereafter—hoping once we fix the transmitting equipment, it will all be sent to you, alive or not.
“As I said, there are three species, one I call the HRYP (Homo-erectus of the Yellow Planet); the second being NYP (The Neanderthal), and the animal like hybrids, such as snakes, some birds, and beasts.”
2
“Journal Notes from scientist, Isabella Jeffries ((PH.D, from Harvard, and undergraduate work at Colombia) (zoologist, biologist, and computer science, twenty-seven years old)):
“As I lie here pending death, which slowly engulfs me like a dark shadow, the pageantry of glory, of space exploration has also faded into nothingness. Yes, I have been eaten alive by my own failing mind, virtually a prisoner in silenced on this spacecraft.
My comrades came back from several of their journeys, out into the plains of this planet, came back filled with dreary, disease-racked systems, from the beings called Neanderthal beasts that the captain has named them so. The last time they came, I had visible manifestations of their already diseased bodies, and I would not let them into the spacecraft. Their so called walking, or strolling spirits –have under this brief and temporary time, off and on, have come to the spacecraft to haunt me, waiting for me to leave, for these past fifty-years, they have now turned black, unstable masses of blackness, like shadows, that circle the ship waiting for me to leave, to get their revenge, their souls cannot sleep.
“Their history is now my history, from the first and only landing of over fifty-years ago, I am now seventy-five years old, a product of this planet’s degenerate civilization, dim as it is— but it is none of these things that I should speak, or transmit as I have transmitted for all these years to planet earth, what needs to be said is simple, the Neanderthals are slayers, not lovers of life, they have brought mud from the foliage side of the planet, when they see things they feel and think are distorted things, such as humans, they swim in the mud to become infected—so they can infect; they know they will die thereafter, but they seem to be grisly about it, even though underlying reality, like salmon, swimming upstream to return to their hatchers, even though they know impending death resides there.
They also know I get only revulsion from them, that my world is different from theirs, over the years I have received enough feedback—one way or another—from them to conclude that they feel my blind hate for their race. They seem to use me for entertainment, they bring their young to look at me as if I am a monkey in a cage, because all they need to do is crash open the door, or put some of that yellow mud on the surface of the ship and it would eat right through it.
“It was thus, long ago that it seems, now that I’ve seen these yellow-eyed Neanderthals for decades, when I first walked alone, out into the plains for food or whatever, and westward, a wild and wasteland and no more, I was rapped by one of those beasts, he also returns every year to see me with my child, which he cares for. But I never set foot outside of this spacecraft anymore. The child has blazing blue eyes, trampled snow covered skin. Redder lips than me.
“I think of the next expedition that will come here, and they will come, especially to meet this ominous society, eye to eye, they will come fear factor or not, for exploration is endlessly driven by man’s restlessness. (Earth Year, AD 2126)
Note for Part One of Two of the many sketches and short novelettes, and stores this author has done pertaining to the Cadaverous Planets, this story here “The Yellow Planet,” 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 created and used, and created to his liking, being that near his infamous planet Moiromma. 8-6-2008 (Reedited, 8-2009 and 11-2009)
Note for part two: Written, 8-6-2008; this is the second story of the Yellow Planet); modified 8-25-2008. (Reedited, 8-2009/11-2009)
Note for Part three to the “Yellow Planet” which goes by the subtitle of: “Crashing landing on the Yellow Planet” written in part on 8-11-2009, in the morning, in Huancayo, Peru; completed, 9-19-2009, reedited 11-2010; and renamed, Ominous Intent on the Yellow Planet.
Reedited all three tales: 9-2010
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