“Small
Planet”
By
RD Rivero
“We’re
going to crash!” The ship lost power
rapidly. Alarms rang loudly, dials spun
madly. The ship fell, the pilot and
copilot could do nothing. The vessel
skimmed over a forest, careened across the razor-sharp treetops and smashed deep
in the woods.
The
two Thundercats were knocked, tumbled about the cramped interior of the control
room to unconsciousness. Tygra was the
first to come to. “Are you all right?”
he asked Cheetara. He shook her head
gently and she opened her eyes. The cheetah
looked around: most of everything in
sight was broken.
“We
should get out and check the ship over,” she said, she stood up a bit too
quickly. She swayed, her head felt hot,
felt sweaty. “We need to know just how
bad the damage is. Do you think we’ll
need to wear the space suits?”
Tygra
peered out one of the control room’s windows.
“The planet is quite similar to Third Earth.” He ran some tests on air samples. “Yes.
It’s fine. It’s fine.”
She
opened the hatch door and went outside.
The whole front of the ship was ruined.
“We won’t be able to fix the ship with the tools we have.”
“What
do we do now?” He whispered under his breath.
“What do we do now?” Tygra stood
outside. He closely eyed the surrounding
wilderness. Something he found he did
not agree with but said nothing yet she sensed his tacit foreboding.
“We
were sent to explore this world,” Cheetara reminded him. “It seems we’re going to have a whole lot of
time to do that. It could be weeks
before anyone back on New Thundera misses us.”
“Then
we should see what grows here, what life forms there are here but first the
supplies.”
With
that word the two Thundercats went back into the ship. Together they cleaned the cabin, they took
stock of the miscellaneous inventory and they rechecked the supplies. At the end, at last, Tygra and Cheetara lay
down to rest. Neither spoke until
Cheetara broke the silence. “Some of out
cartons of food were destroyed. There’s
only enough food for three days.”
“I
think we should familiarize ourselves with the planet,” Tygra began, “to see if
there’s anything we could eat.”
The
two cats walked into the woods. Trees
and bushes surrounded the ship. The
bushes were small -- small enough to almost fit into the palm of the hand --
the trees themselves were not higher than ten or twelve feet. Here and there were vines with red berries on
them.
Cheetara
worried. “These berries aren’t any
larger than grapes. Even if we can eat
them we’re going to need much more and there isn’t enough for one meal.”
“This
is the only food we’ve found,” Tygra said.
“But we should test them out back at the ship just to make sure.” He looked around the sky. “It’ll be dark soon.”
While
the two walked back to the downed ship Cheetara stopped several times. “I hear something, Tygra,” she whispered into
his ear.
Tygra
paused: “I don’t hear anything,” he said
though his own face contradicted him.
In
the ship he ran tests on the red berries.
“The computers couldn’t find the trace of any known toxin. Should we try them?”
“Why
don’t you go fist,” she said.
Tygra
ate one, he smiled, “Good.”
The
two Thundercats dined on the red berries.
The
next morning Cheetara said she had heard strange noises that night yet Tygra
insisted that there was nothing, nothing, nothing to fear. “Forget it,” he said. “Let’s go get more berries.”
“For breakfast?”
They
opened the hatch door and they saw that there were three huge piles of red
berries before the ship.
“Forget
it? Then where did this come from?”
Tygra
looked surprised.
“I
bet it was the noises I heard all along all last night. There might be natives around. Friendly natives. And these berries are our gifts.” Cheetara desperately tried to explain the
unexplainable.
“I
don’t know, I don’t know, Cheetara, if we should take gifts from
strangers. If we have friends why don’t
we see them?”
“But
it’s so obvious. They want to know if
we’re friendly too.” She sat on the
ground betwixt the piles of red berries.
“Come down. Let’s have
breakfast.”
While
the two Thundercats began to eat Cheetara turned her head back in sudden
awareness. She whispered to him that she
heard the noises again and Tygra had to admit the fact that was no longer
deniable.
“I
hear them too,” he whispered to her so softly, so softly to keep even himself from
hearing the words.
A
nearby bush rustled and out came a small creature that looked exactly like a
Third Earth human but only eight inches tall.
The creature carried a red berry in its arms. Tygra and Cheetara watched as it walked
toward them, as it put the red berry down in front of them.
“Thank
you,” Tygra said. He smiled. He slowly reached for the fruit. More squeaky noises came from the bushes and
just like that twenty creatures appeared.
The one closest to the tiger uttered something to the others and all ran
to the two Thundercats, squeaking wildly, dancing, playing fitfully around the
sitting Thunderians. “So they are
friendly.”
Over
the next few days the creatures brought food for Tygra and Cheetara. They carried the huge red berries in their
little hands one at a time. It took ours
to bring one meal. Sometimes the two
helped the natives, other times they explored the forests, yet they also often
tried to speak to their hosts.
On
the morning of the seventh day Tygra called to Cheetara. He stood near the ship’s hatch. He frowned.
He looked terrified.
“What’s
the matter?” She asked.
“We’ll
never be able to leave this planet,” he said quietly, resignedly.
“What
are you taking about?”
He
pointed up to the hatch of the ship.
“When we first landed here I had to duck to get through the hatch. On the third day my head just barely touched
the upper rim of the door frame. On the
fifth day I noticed no problem at all coming into or getting out of the
ship. Today -- this morning -- I clear
the opening by half a foot.” She was stunned, she looked down on herself, on her clothes that
suddenly seemed looser, far looser than ever before. “Don’t you see? It’s the berries, Cheetara, it’s the berries. We’re shrinking!”
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