War's Oversight - Chapter 04
#3 of War's Oversight
War's Oversight
Chapter 04
Omicron Kappa 3's star formed the faintest of lines as it was squeezed and flattened against the horizon in the west - an arc of blinding amber. Then, the arc was squeezed and compressed from either end until it was the tiniest of points ... and then it disappeared.
There were no clouds in the sky, nor trees to show the fading glow from the absent star. Omicron Kappa 3 had been formed from the stellar dust like a solitary and neglected child, and had no moon. The stars shone like pinpricks of harsh light through the planet's thin atmosphere, but carried no warmth.
Darkness gripped the landscape, and an already deepening cold, had any humans been present, would have chilled any Terran to their very bones.
There was only one being on Omicron Kappa 3 under the night sky who was not facing the evening from within a well-insulated and heated building, and although his bones were cold, he would scarcely have complained.
He had watched the setting sun, and with what an observer might have called a kind of homesickness. Amber eyes as brilliant as the sun itself had squinted into the distance as his pupils were held to the narrowest of slits. The light had glistened on the ruffled fur of his face, which shone a lustrous golden brown but was whipped back and forth by the changing winds. And, as the light had faded, his face had retreated into darkness, and his pupils had grown wide.
That same observer, had any been there, might then have thought this being looked frightened. His eyes might have been deceiving, but there was something authoritative and alert in the way that his tufted, furred ears were cupped forward and held high. And, indeed, there was something in the way that he had confidently turned from the western horizon to face toward the object of his interest. Anyone who knew this being would have known instinctively that whether homesick or not, there was unlikely to be fear in his heart.
His eyes were now fixed on the very distant colony buildings of the Terran settlement, viewing them through a sturdy but technologically antiquated pair of binocular lenses. With the surrounding landscape as dark and as quiet as a crypt, the well-lit compound of the Terrans seemed to still be swarming with activity. Vehicles still crawled from one building to the next, no doubt carrying supplies and personnel, but few of them were venturing outside on foot now that the temperature was falling rapidly.
In fact, by now, the being's exhaled breath, calm and steady, was visible exiting his muzzle past an array of long, sharp teeth, from between loosely closed, black lips, and jetting slightly from small nostrils in a cloud of whirling frost. Where it touched his fur, the frost began to cling as it built upon itself.
He raised a free hand to the binoculars and gripped a small dial with large but seemingly stubby fingers but that barely showed the tips of otherwise extensive and impressive claws. A slow twist of the dial appeared to bring the image of the Terrans' activities closer. The being delicately shifted the gaze of the device from place to place in the tiniest of increments at a time, and his thoughts turned to memorizing all that he was seeing.
After a time, in which the deepening cold continued to gnaw at the landscape, a change came over this solitary being, in which the longer, darker fur surrounding his head and ears seemed to stand curiously on end - giving him the appearance of a creature covered instead in bristles from crown to shoulders. This seemed to rouse him slightly, and he lowered his viewing device to slip into a pocket on the front of his environment suit. The highly modern fabric made barely a whisper as it slid across itself, and as he carefully raised the hood of the suit to clasp firmly around the periphery of his face.
The sudden absence of ears and mane made him look somewhat smaller, and when he swung the mask that dangled from the suit's neck up into place to cover his face, he looked not only smaller but thoroughly unnatural.
Terrans might have remarked that for his slightly hunched stature, apparently small head and neck, and the bulbous, goggle-eyed appearance of the suit mask's optics, that he might have been a gremlin of sorts. A large gremlin, to be sure, but otherwise a dark-clad, furtive, skulking creature at home in the shadows and creating mischief.
His own species, the Chakri, had no superstitions about small creatures bent on mischief and the perversity of inanimate things. They had an entirely different view of creatures which moved in stealth and created mischief, and would have thought of him as behaving like a scavenger, or an offspring-stealer. Indeed, the very idea of hostile intentions coupled with indirect actions was something the Chakri were not completely comfortable with.
He carefully ducked back down behind the outcropping of rock which interposed itself between him and the Terran colony, and raised his right hand to his mask. A polished claw extruded itself from his first finger, a dull grey gleam in the darkness but brighter than anything else nearby. He delicately located a small recess at the mask's side before pressing the claw inward. At this, he began to look from left to right, and from sky to pitfall below, before steadying himself against the ground.
The path which led from the minor peak on which he had perched himself to the pass below was one which would have daunted most creatures with a sensible fear of heights. But again, fear was something of which this Chakri's heart had no abundance. Sense, however, was something he did possess. He carefully turned to face the rock surface and fitted his clawed hands to nearby handholds. At times moving no faster than a mere tenth of a metre per second, he picked his way downward.
A Terran observer would also have deemed his feet to be ill-suited for mountaineering. They were almost entirely toes and claws, with ankle and unpadded heel curiously raised off the ground. Even the boots this Chakri was wearing, of as modern and perfect manufacture as could be managed, added precious little gripping surface to the scant amount he already had. But whatever strange force of nature had deprived the Chakri of plantigrade feet, it had gifted them with an equal measure of both patience and a keen sense of balance.
After long minutes, the slope eased, and the Chakri was able to turn around and start walking around the larger rocks and boulders that littered the landscape here. Slowly, and with frequent glances at the horizon in the direction of the Terran colony, the Chakri wound his way deeper into the heart of the mountain range.
The winds which had merely ruffled his fur and chilled him now seemed to intensify as he approached the foot of another small mountain, where the boulders and rocks appeared thicker on the ground and the air seemed to be choked with a thickening dust which hissed against his environment suit. Although fairly sealed against the outside air by his garments, the Chakri seemed to bend into a crouch as he hurried along.
After a few minutes, the landscape had turned into an almost impenetrable blackness of unlit grey rock, towering mountain crags, blown dust, and scarcely-visible and distant stars. The Chakri, who would hardly have been visible a metre away from anyone following, seemed to lean against a nearby boulder for balance, then slipped around behind it, and was gone from sight.
Yes - indirect actions were not in the Chakri nature.
But they were learning.