2015 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide Read online

  The armored segment of leg that connected to the lobstersaurus’s shell seemed to get longer, then a black line appeared at the joint.

  “Is the leg coming off?” Esperanza asked. “Can it go off on its own like a starfish arm and grow another lobstersaurus?”

  The leg popped off the body and thudded to the ground, leaving a dark hole in the smooth yellow shell of the body. The leg lay still.

  “No,” Papá said, but his voice was unsure.

  Something moved at the hole. Three small segmented legs, only about twenty centimeters long, stretched out.

  “It’s like the Hydra,” Esperanza said, “but growing legs instead of heads.”

  A small head appeared, and she realized it was a baby lobstersaurus. The baby pulled itself out of the hole and then, limbs flailing, fell two meters to the ground.

  “That can’t be how they normally give birth,” Mamá said, voice tinged with horror. As a botanist, Mamá had extensively studied the native plants, but she didn’t know much about the animals.

  The baby tried to stand up but fell over.

  “No.” Papá pushed back from the table and stood. “Normally kind of a hatch in the shell would open up in the belly, but – well ….”

  After a moment’s thought, Esperanza understood. “Since the mom is lying dead on its belly, the baby couldn’t get out. It had to find another way. Oh, the poor thing could have died!” She stared at the baby lobstersaurus as it wobbled into a standing position, reminding her of the vid she had seen of a baby horse back on earth. It was about a half meter tall. As if trying to see the whole world with its multiple black eyes, it waved its head about. It gaped its toothless yellow beak and wagged its tiny pincer arms.

  It was the cutest thing Esperanza had ever seen in real life.

  “Most likely it would die anyway even if I don’t kill it,” Papá said. “Without its mother to catch food for –”

  “I could,” Esperanza said.

  Papá blinked at her. “What?”

  “I could catch food for it,” Esperanza said. “Please? Can I keep it? You can’t kill it, it’s just a baby.”

  “Keep it?” Mamá said. “It’s a monster.”

  “It could be my pet,” Esperanza said. “I could train it.” She searched her memory desperately for what she had learned about lobstersauruses in her science studies. “They’re territorial animals. If I can get it to mark our farm as its territory, we won’t have to worry about other lobstersauruses coming through.”

  “Mija,” said Papá, “It’s small now, but it will grow quickly, and it’s a dangerous animal.”

  “Please,” she begged. “Before dogs became pets, weren’t they dangerous animals? It could be like … like a science experiment. If I can’t train it, then you can kill it.”

  “I don’t know,” Papá said. Esperanza had a moment of hope because he hadn’t said no.

  “Rico,” Mamá said, “it’s too dangerous.”

  “But Mamá,” Esperanza said, “it could be my friend. Please. A friend.”

  That was the one thing she thought might persuade Mamá. Esperanza heard her parents talking at night when they thought she was asleep, so she knew that they worried about her not having friends. She had been born six years before the colony ship arrived in the Kallisto system. Even at ten times the speed of light, it had taken over twelve years for the ship to travel from Earth, and the five thousand colonists had made the trip in cryo – except that Mamá’s tube had malfunctioned after five years, so the ship had revived her. She had woken Papá to keep her company, and Esperanza had been born a year later due to a malfunctioning birth control implant.

  For the two years since landing on Arcas, Esperanza had been the lone child in a society of adults. With the colony now firmly established, many of the women had turned off their birth control implants and were pregnant. But even after the babies were born, she would still be alone: twelve years younger than the closest adult, nine years older than the closest child.

  Looking out the window at the baby lobstersaurus, Mamá sighed. “You will not bring it in the house. You will feed it and clean up after it, not me.”

  “Yes, Mamá. Thank you, Mamá.” Filled with excitement, Esperanza rushed toward the door.

  “Wait,” said Papá, and her heart fell.

  She turned to face him.

  “When it grows teeth in that beak, you will have to file them down so they are not sharp,” he said. “And we may need to do something about those pincers.”

  “Yes, Papá.”

  He picked up his work pack and walked over to her. “And I will come with you now. It may be small, but we do not know how it will react to you. It may not want to be your pet; it may not be possible to train it.” Taking her hand, he led her out the door.

  The baby lobstersaurus wobbled on six legs in the shadow of its mother. A trilling cry came from its beak.

  When Esperanza and Papá got within two meters, it suddenly dropped on its belly. Esperanza’s grip tightened on Papá’s hand. The baby withdrew its head, legs, and pincer arms inside its shell, and sealed the holes.

  “Oh, the poor baby’s scared of us,” Esperanza said.

  “That’s good,” Papá said. “If it had attacked us, I probably would have had to kill it.” He slipped some object Esperanza had not noticed him carrying into his pack.

  “Did you know it could hide like a turtle?” she asked.

  Papá shrugged. “Can’t remember if that was in the survey robots’ reports. Probably was, because they’re very thorough. But I’ve never seen an adult do that, so maybe just babies can.”

  “But how can I tame it if it hides in its shell?”

  “It will get hungry,” he said. “Come.” He led her over to the Arcasian scrap heap, where non-Earth biological material was placed for eventual protein conversion. Papá pulled out a dead crabbit about ten centimeters long. He whacked it a couple of times against the metal edge of the container until its shell cracked.

  “Pull out the meat. If you feed it,” he said, “it may think you’re its mother.”

  With Papá standing guard, Esperanza waited in front of the baby lobstersaurus until finally the shell’s head-hole opened. She remained very still.

  The lobstersaurus’s head slowly came out. It opened its beak and chirped.

  Ever so slowly, Esperanza held out her hand holding a piece of crabbit meat. She put it down on the ground just a few centimeters from its beak, then withdrew her hand.

  In a quick motion, the lobstersaurus snapped the meat up in its beak. With a slurping sound, it swallowed the meat whole.

  After a few more trips to the scrap heap, Esperanza had fed the baby until it refused more food, and it followed her around with a wobbling six-legged gait.

  “What will you name it?” Papá asked.

  Ezperanza thought about it for a moment, and the answer came to her in the form of a traditional Argentine folk song her parents often sang to her because it contained her name: ‘Zamba de mi esperanza.’ “Zamba,” she said. “Its name is Zamba.”

  …………………………

  Since they keep their reproductive organs inside their shells except during mating, the only visible difference between the sexes is that the female has an armored flap on her underside through which live offspring emerge.

  —Pre-colonization survey report

  …………………………

  Zamba grew more quickly than Esperanza expected. On her ninth birthday, less than six Earth months after she had adopted him, he was over a meter tall, a meter wide, and two meters long. She was still a good twenty centimeters taller than him, but that would not last long.

  As a treat for her birthday, Papá had diverted water from the river, which ran along the eastern edge of their property, into a hole four meters wide he’d had the farmbots dig. “Someday we’ll build a real swimming pool,” he said as she splashed about in the waist-deep, muddy water. “But this will do for now.”

 
; Zamba tentatively dipped the tip of his left foreleg into the water, but stayed on the bank.

  “Come on, Zamba,” Esperanza said. “You can do it. See, it’s fun.” She splashed some water on his shell.

  “I don’t think he wants to, mija.” Papá also stood on the bank. “He’s not sure he can find his footing in there, and he can’t float.”

  Esperanza frowned. “But I read that lobstersauruses have an aquatic origin. He should like being in water.”

  “Even if they evolved from aquatic creatures, it’s been a long, long time. If you go back far enough, humans evolved from monkeys. That doesn’t mean we have to like swinging from tree branches.”

  “But I like swinging from tree branches,” Esperanza said.

  Papá gazed at her for a moment. “Hmm. I can see the monkey resemblance. I think I shall call you monita, my little monkey.”

  She replied to that by sending a big splash of water his way. Papá leapt nimbly backward to dodge it, but some of the force of his leap caused a meter-long section of dirt to collapse into the water, sending little waves across. Esperanza giggled.

  One of the farmbots that had dug the pool jolted into motion toward the collapsed rim, shovel arm extended.

  Zamba sprang sideways, away from the pool, then jumped more than double his length to crash into the farmbot.

  Esperanza shrieked. “Zamba! Stop!”

  Zamba grabbed the farmbot’s neck in one pincer and its shovel arm in the other. Metal twisted and groaned. Zamba let out a roar Esperanza had never heard before as the arm tore from the farmbot’s frame.

  Then Zamba dropped the farmbot and its arm and stepped back. The farmbot’s shoulder sparked erratically.

  Esperanza stood completely still, staring at the scene.

  From somewhere across the river, wild territory still untouched by humans, came a deeper answering roar.

  “Out of the pool, away from Zamba.” Papá’s voice was quiet but firm. “Now.” Facing Zamba, he moved slowly toward his work pack, which lay on the ground a few meters away.

  Panic rose inside Esperanza. Papá was going to do something to Zamba, maybe even kill him. She couldn’t let that happen. So she moved forward, climbing out on the edge closest to Zamba.

  “Espe!” Papá said. He froze in place.

  “Bad Zamba,” Esperanza said, staring at Zamba’s black eyes and putting all the anger she could into her voice. “Don’t break things. Bad Zamba.”

  Papá moved toward her, away from his pack.

  Zamba’s head drooped. He turned to face her, then backed up a step and sank onto his belly.

  Esperanza ran forward and gave Zamba’s beak a light slap. Then she made her voice friendly. “You’re a good boy, Zamba. But you can’t break things just because you’re big and strong.”

  “Get away from him, mija.”

  “No, Papá.” She stroked Zamba’s head and he made cheeping sounds like he used to when he was a baby. “See, he hasn’t gone wild. He must have thought the farmbot was attacking or something.”

  “You can’t really know what he’s thinking. He’s a wild creature. He may act tame sometimes, but he’s not like a dog or cat or horse, that has evolved to live with humans.” Papá sighed. “Now that he’s grown so big, maybe it’s time to let him go live in the wild.”

  “No, Papá. Please.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He’s a good boy. He’ll behave.”

  Papá was silent for a minute. “Okay. But remember how I said we might need to do something about his pincers? It’s necessary. I can’t stand the thought of . . . It’s necessary.”

  That night, while Esperanza held Zamba’s head and sang to him, Papá banded Zamba’s pincers with a nanofiber strip, slightly elastic to allow room for a few weeks’ growth.

  …………………………

  There are no venomous animals on the main continent, probably because all its animal species have shells, making venom delivery impossible. Thus, small species may present a minor problem as pests, but are not dangerous. High-tensile fencing is capable of keeping out larger species, except for C-3506. Not even electrified fencing will work for C-3506, due to its protective shell, which also renders it virtually invulnerable to standard-grade projectile and energy weapons. Military-grade weapons or high explosives will be needed to kill C-3506, so the colony should be supplied with such.

  —Pre-colonization survey report

  …………………………

  At two Earth-years old — about 2.05 Arcasian years — Zamba was almost three meters tall, more than double Esperanza’s height and about the size of an adult African elephant on Earth. And he was not nearly full grown. Since his pincers were banded, she had to crack the shells of the dead pest animals brought in by the farmbots so that Zamba could eat them. That and collecting Zamba’s scat to put in the scrap heap for protein conversion were her main chores associated with keeping Zamba. The farmbots could have done both jobs for her, but her parents insisted that she do the work herself because Zamba was her responsibility.

  “Espe? Where are you?” Mamá called from inside the house.

  “Fixing supper for Zamba,” Esperanza replied. She smashed the sledgehammer onto a blue crabbit and its shell crunched.

  “The power’s gone out.” Mamá came to the back door, her belly eight months pregnant with a baby sister for Esperanza. “I can’t raise your father on the comm, so you’ll have to fetch him to look at the generator.”

  Esperanza smashed a red crabbit then put down the hammer. “Zamba and I will find him.” She picked up the two cracked crabbits by their tails and tossed them to Zamba, who gulped them down with a satisfied grunt.

  A stinging sensation near her left ankle made Esperanza look down. A two-centimeter-long, six-legged creature was biting her. She kicked it off with her right foot. A trickle of blood ran down from the bite. She stomped on the thing and twisted her foot until she heard the shell crack. She saw a couple more of the same species crawling along the ground and stomped them for good measure. If the stupid animals on this planet would just learn that Earth-based life didn’t provide them with any real nutrition . . .

  From far to the east, a lobstersaurus bellowed. Esperanza instinctively covered her ears, having learned from past experience that Zamba’s response could be annoyingly loud.

  She didn’t hear a bellow, but did hear a muffled scream. Puzzled, Esperanza turned toward her mother, who was running toward her, pregnant belly bouncing.

  Something grabbed Esperanza’s torso and twisted her up into the air. Pinpricks of pain spread across her back as she was bounced around. Wind whipped her hair.

  Esperanza looked at what was holding her. It was Zamba’s beak. “Zamba! Bad boy! Put me down. Put me down, now!”

  Zamba kept running across their crop fields, trampling the pest fences without slowing down.

  She made eye contact and repeated her command, but there was a wildness in Zamba’s eyes she had never seen before.

  “Papá!” she screamed. “Papá, help!”

  They were headed east, toward the river and the wild country beyond. She tried to think what had triggered this attack. Was the bellow she had heard some sort of mating call? She had read about species on Earth for which the male offered food to the female before mating. Was that what she was, a food offering?

  At least she was alive, so far. And Zamba’s teeth had been filed so they weren’t very sharp, although they still felt like they were tearing into her skin a bit. But if Zamba was taking her to a wild lobstersaurus . . . A memory of Zamba using his pincers to rip the arm off the farmbot involuntarily came to her mind.

  “Zamba, please,” she said, trying to make her voice calm. “Be a good boy and put me down.”

  Zamba swerved, shuddered as there was a cracking sound, then started falling forward. His mouth opened and Esperanza tumbled to the ground, the cornstalks partially breaking her fall.

  She pulled herself to her feet and looked back to make sense of what had happene
d. Zamba screeched in pain – his front two legs were shattered. Papá’s tractor lay crumpled a few meters away.

  “Papá!” she called and began stumbling toward the tractor.

  He appeared out of the cornstalks nearby, running toward her. “Mija, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said as he enveloped her in a hug. “I don’t know what got into –”

  “Later,” Papá said. “Back to the house, quick as we can.”

  Zamba cheeped at her, but she turned her back and began to run alongside Papá through the crops toward home.

  “It’s my fault,” she said.

  “No,” Papá said.

  “I should have let you take him to the wild.”

  “Do you think you could have stopped me if I had decided to do it? I am the one to blame, for being too soft-hearted. I never wanted you to get hurt, mija. I knew losing Zamba would hurt you. But sometimes you must hurt those you love to save them from a greater pain.”

  They met Mamá coming the other way when they were a half-kilometer from the house. She wept with joy when she saw Esperanza. “You’re alive,” she kept repeating as they continued toward home.

  …………………………

  The seeds of all plant species on the main continent are covered in a highly mineralized shell that is resistant to the digestive systems of the local fauna. This probably evolved as a method of spreading the seeds via herbivore scat. The mineral compound in the shells is durable enough that it may have industrial uses.

  —Pre-colonization survey report

  …………………………

  Because the power was still out, Papá had to use a flashlight so he could see the lock on his office safe where he kept the blastique.

  “Do you have to do that now?” Mamá asked.

  Papá sighed. “Zamba was a good pet the past two years. No matter what happened today, I should end his suffering. He deserves that much mercy.”