Returning

By Pat Whitaker

Returning tells the story of an alien, exiled to Earth, trying first to survive in an unfamiliar world, and then to find a way to return to his own kind. In the process he learns as much about himself as he does about human kind.
The nature of the alien provides an opportunity for the reader to look at our world and ourselves with an external and unprejudiced perspective.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cooper's Press
• Release date: Nov 24, 2009
• ISBN: 9781877557118

Pat Whitaker

Born in England in 1946, I moved to New Zealand with my parents and older brother at the age of four and, apart from five years in my late twenties spent traveling the globe, have lived here ever since. After a fairly rudimentary education, I found work as an Architectural Designer and this became a life-long occupation. I started writing late in 2006. The books I write are intended in the first instance to tell a good story and secondly " once the tale is told " to leave the reader with something to ponder. To this end, all my stories attempt to provide an original take on some commonly held belief, be it cultural, social or scientific. Being a fan of both science fiction and classic murder mysteries, these tend to be common themes, with elements of both often combined in a single story. As a person who likes to read a book in a single sitting, I normally limit each work to around forty-five or fifty thousand words. Unfashionable I know, but it's what I prefer. Of my books, Mindset, Antithesis, Returning and Nmemesis were finalists for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards - Best Adult Novel between 2009-2012, plus Best New Talent in 2009. If you'd like to know more, please visit my website.

Book preview

RETURNING

Time does not quiet the echo of our future.

Pat Whitaker

Copyright © 2009 by Pat Whitaker

Cover design Pat & Robert Whitaker

All rights reserved.

Other Titles by Pat Whitaker

Antithesis

Bad Blood

Time Out

Raw Spirit

Mindset

ISBN: 978-1-877557-11-8

Cooper’s Press, Smashwords Edition, April 2010

Book One:

Chapter one: Awakening

Slowly, imperceptibly, consciousness returned to Arthys.

It was warm. At first he struggled to make any sense of things, but gradually reason began to reassert itself.

He was conscious; therefore he was in a host. He tried to connect with the thoughts and emotions around him, but they were too alien, too confusing. Instead he began to feel out the pathways of his host’s senses. He needed to learn.

Pictures began to form in his mind. And sensations. It was cold, very cold.

For some time he could make no sense of his host’s surroundings, but gradually things began to fit into place. He was lying on some sort of hard surface and was immersed in a fluid much lighter than he was used to—a gas rather than a liquid. It was important he identify it. Substantially inert, maybe nitrogen—yes, nitrogen—with fairly large amounts of oxygen and carbon dioxide. That posed no problem.

Some instinct moved him to raise himself up on his limbs and shake himself, scattering a fine shower of what appeared to be frozen water particles, the same particles that covered the surface on which he was now standing, in a deep white powder. In fact, most of what he was doing was instinctive—the small but vital things that would keep him alive—but he knew enough to simply let them happen. To not interfere.

Under the blanket of the frozen particles, the surface on which he was resting was solid. Minerals, rocks. Much of this surface, however, was covered in living organisms. These seemed to be static and very rudimentary. From what he could observe, they were attached to the surface by a spreading filament structure that extended across and into the rock, and this supported a tall stem, dividing as it rose, thrusting up into the gas. Covering this was a multitude of small plate-like elements, green in colour, and forming a considerable canopy.

The function of this he could only guess at, but common sense told him that if the organisms—there were a multitude of them—were static, it was difficult to imagine the gaseous medium providing a sufficient nutrient source. The logical conclusion was that the small green plates were collecting energy from the system's star.

From where he was standing he could see far into the distance, and everywhere was a blanket of this green interspersed with patches of white. There seemed little else.

But he was wrong. Suddenly he became aware of a new smell, a smell that had not been present when he had first regained consciousness. He turned in its direction, alert, anxious. Some distance away there was a movement amongst the growing organisms. They parted and something entirely different appeared. This was not static like the others. This was small and compact—and warm.

It was moving on four limbs, the front part of its body held low and pointing in his direction. It moved cautiously toward him, emitting a low, rumbling noise.

With a start, he realised that he was looking at one of his host's own kind. All sorts of emotions crashed in on him. He came close to panic—this was not an experience he had ever undergone before. Quickly he realised his only course was to give himself over to his host and trust its instincts. This was too far outside his experience for him to intervene.

The two creatures slowly circled one another. Arthys began to realise that they actually knew each other, that they shared a bond. But a bond driven by necessity and tempered by deep distrust. The physiology of these creatures—of himself—implied that they were carnivores and probably survived in groups. This was the root of the relationship.

He tried looking into his host's consciousness to learn more, but the creature functioned on instinct and emotion. There were memories and a vestige of reason, but no more than of immediate cause and effect.

He looked at the newcomer. The part of the body at the front was compact but reasonably well articulated, and carried all the primary sensory organs; sight, smell and sound. It also carried the only really functional means of gripping anything, and it appeared that it doubled as the means of ingesting nutrients—specifically, he realised with a shock—the bodies of other creatures similar to himself. Other creatures he would have to find and kill.

It was a crude and barbaric way of harvesting energy, so different from the elegant canopy of green above him. He could, he supposed, take one of those organisms as a host—he was certain that they would have within them circulating fluids, all living things did—but he doubted they had consciousness. Without a host possessed of consciousness, he himself would also have none.

His species could not survive without a host—not for more than a very limited period of time. For him to leave a host's body was a very dangerous thing, as he would need to find a new host, enter it, locate the centre of its nervous system and extend the myriad of microscopic filaments that would link him to its cerebrum, all in a matter of moments. And all this guided by instinct alone, as he would retain no consciousness throughout the process.

No, for the moment at least, he was what this host was, and would remain so.

Chapter two: The Hunt

Arthys looked at their new companion. The other creature seemed distracted, and he realised it was drawing in the gas that surrounded them, testing it. He tried doing the same, and became aware of the complex mixture of scents it carried.

Suddenly the other creature emitted a long, drawn-out howl that reverberated across the landscape. Arthys' host joined in, and soon he detected another two, more distant howls. The creature beside him started to move off down the slope. Arthys joined him, trotting briskly slightly behind and to one side. Why this position, he did not know, but as with so much of what was happening, he simply deferred to the instincts of his host.

After some time, he became aware that they were not alone. Looking back, he saw that two more of the creatures were following silently behind in the path they had cut through the white powder. As he looked, they dropped back a little, as if intimidated by his attention. But they kept pace. He sensed that his host was reassured by their presence.

The creatures were covered in long grey filaments, densely packed, and obviously designed to protect them from the cold. For his host's body was warm—much warmer than the environment in which they found themselves, and appeared to be maintained at a constant temperature. He could feel the cold, as his host continuously drew quantities of the surrounding gas into a large pair of internal organs, only to expel it again in a steady rhythm.

He examined the workings of this body he now inhabited. It appeared that the nutrients acquired by hunting could not be used directly by the host—they needed to be broken down by a process of oxidation. The organs that received the gas extracted the oxygen and sent it via a fluid medium to the cells. Here the oxidisation took place, releasing energy. The waste product, in the form of carbon dioxide, was returned and expelled.

A fragile and vulnerable system, he thought, but one that had served these creatures for a hundred thousand orbits or more of their star.

They had now reached the bottom of the slope and, in the depression where the surface changed plane, a ribbon of a different fluid had collected. A molecule of oxygen and hydrogen—water—but this time in liquid form. It was partially covered by the solid, but in patches it was exposed, and moving.

Arthys could feel his host being drawn to this dancing, bubbling flow of liquid, and he realised that this was a component essential to their survival. It made sense. Their body, solid and sinewy as it was, on a cellular level was composed almost entirely of water. Water was also used to control their body temperature, to remove waste and a multitude of other functions. Its constant replenishment was vital.

His host—and the other two of his kind—drank their fill. The one that had led them here, however, stood aside, and constantly scanned the surroundings. Only when his host was finished and moved away did he come forward, and Arthys knew that he in turn was to stand guard.

These creatures, of which he was now one, had no language. They did have a limited range of vocalisations that could convey a specific sense, but not an explicit meaning. They had no names, but Arthys had come to subconsciously label the first he had met as Prime, due to its obvious dominance. The others were Black—his coat was a much darker grey than the rest of them—and Last—as he always fell in at the rear when they were on the move.

Arthys had originally assumed that this indicated his place in the hierarchy but, after observing their interactions at other times, he realised that this was not the case. Both Black and his own host deferred to Last. Position seemed to be determined by the individual’s strength, and while the good of the group dictated that the strongest led, their collective safety required the next strongest to follow in the rear, partly so he could maintain discipline within the group.

They had been proceeding up the slope on the opposite side of the water for some time when Prime stopped dead in his tracks. The others did likewise, and for a long time they remained like that, a frozen tableau, searching the gas for scents. There were so many, and Arthys was not sure what it was that they were trying to identify, but his host seemed to know.

After a little while he began to distinguish the scent that had brought them to a halt. It was different. He could smell sweat and blood, skin and bone. These were not things he recognised as such, but they were the smells of his own kind. But not quite his own kind. This was the scent of another, warm-blooded creature. This was the scent of prey.

As they stood, motionless, Arthys could feel a change in his host's body. All the little things that had intruded into his consciousness—the empty pain in his insides, the cold, the stiffness in his left rear limb—they all disappeared. Gradually he experienced a rising sense of excitement, of euphoria. His senses were sharpened. His wariness of the others was replaced by a sense of oneness—a bond.

He looked inside himself, intrigued. There was a shift in the chemical balance in his host’s body. He knew of species that had administered chemicals to soldiers in battle for this very purpose, but he had never heard of anywhere that the body produced them itself, on demand. He wondered whether this was unique to this creature, or if other species on this planet shared the ability. He knew that there were other species, he was about to kill one—or at least try.

Suddenly, Prime started to move again, heading toward the source of the scent. Despite the sense of excitement, of anticipation brought on by the chemical changes in their bodies, there was no perceptible increase in pace. Although Arthys could read nothing in his host's mind about the nature of the hunt and how it would proceed, he assumed that the conservation of energy could be critical.

And he was anxious. The very idea of his killing another living creature was abhorrent to him. He realised that the empty feeling inside was a sign that his host was in need of sustenance, and that this was the only way this could be met, but his own kind hadn't taken another creatures life in a thousand generations. He didn't know if he would have the strength to hold back and let it happen.

After proceeding at a steady pace up the slope they reached the crest and Prime immediately came to a halt. The others moved up either side of him and they all stood there motionless, looking at the large, open depression below. Scattered throughout were a large number of creatures not entirely dissimilar to themselves.

They were considerably larger—perhaps two and a half times the height, with longer limbs and a more extended fore-part to their bodies, which carried some sort of branching array whose function he could not determine. Arthys observed that this extended fore-part enabled them to reach the ground to obtain sustenance, and he concluded that they fed on the stationary organisms he had seen, particularly the smaller ones growing close to the surface. So they were not predators.

The sense of excitement among the hunters grew, and they started to interact with each other, touching the fore-parts of the bodies where they ingested gas and nutrients, sampling each other's scents. Quite what purpose this served, he was not sure, but he made no attempt to influence his host. Arthys suspected it was a form of ritualised bonding, and served to heighten the level of co-operation during the coming hunt.

The mental processes of his host were rudimentary, and while this ritual played out, Arthys took the opportunity to consider his predicament. He had no recall of being placed here, and nor did he expect to. That he was in such a primitive host on such a primitive planet spoke of the severity of his crime.

Exile from his own kind was the only punishment his species had, and it was a simple system: the worse the crime, the more primitive the host and the more remote the planet. This was not simply retribution. No record of crime or punishment was kept and if a criminal managed to find their way home then their debt was paid. Simple and self-regulating. But crime was rare, and as a consequence the implementation of justice was not well tested to—as Arthys had found to his cost.

His attention snapped back to his host, as Prime started off again in the direction of