Yes Ma’am. Set it down now.
Alex Guerrero took the four-wheeler off autopilot and nosed down toward the ground. The scrub trees were sparse enough that, in a pinch, he could set down almost anywhere. But, whether Culpepper liked it or not, that wasn’t the way this worked. They were more than four thousand miles from their base camp, in a part of the world they’d never explored, on a planet they’d been on for less than three months, and with no drones to monitor their perimeter.
These stops were necessary, but the riskiest part of the mission. In the air, they had almost unlimited visibility and were out of reach of anything that could do them harm. There were still too many unknowns on the ground, especially now that they’d moved well away from their base camp.
He spotted a small clearing up ahead and angled toward it. Slowing his approach, he made a broad circle around the perimeter to give the four-wheeler’s cameras a good look at their surroundings.
“Horses!” she said.
The computer watched for anything in motion. Culpepper’s job on approach was to assess anything it flagged while Guerrero concentrated on navigation.
He centered up over the clearing but didn’t land. “Where?”
Culpepper pointed past him out the left window. “There!”
He spotted about two dozen animals that looked like Earth horses scattered about among the trees. Most were grazing, but several had turned to look up at them as they hovered twenty feet off the ground.
Big. Fast. We’re outnumbered and on their turf. Guerrero took the controls and started pulling out.
“Set it down. Horses are herbivores, they’re not territorial, and rarely aggressive unless threatened. If there were any real threats here, they wouldn’t be here.”
He looked at her. Makes sense. But then, these are not Earth horses. He looked back over his shoulder at the herd. When the four-wheeler pulled out, most of them had returned to grazing.
Guerrero turned the vehicle around and brought it in for a landing, being careful to take a slow approach from a direction that would minimize the perception of threat to the animals.
He looked out his window. “Let’s take this slow. Give them a chance—”
The sound of Culpepper’s door opening interrupted him. He spun his head around and saw her jump out of the vehicle, sling her pack over her shoulder, and take off at a trot toward the tree line in the direction opposite the herd.
“Where are you going!”
“The ladies’ room,” she shouted. “The little boy’s room is over there.” She pointed back over her shoulder in the direction of the horses. Most of whom, he noted, were now looking directly at him.
Stretch your legs. Sure.
( Story copyright by Steve Swaringen. Photo by James Eades on Unsplash )
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