The Cliff

Prologue: Andre

The somewhat sweet smell drifting up from the jungle always caught Andre by surprise when he approached the cliff. Today, it led him to take a moment to look out over the vista before doing his chore. He thought of the aroma as odd, but it was the norm for Dorado. Even though they’d been here almost four Terran years, it still seemed unnatural. And, after all this time, the sight of the mottled red and green canopy of leaves still mesmerized him. Their farm was the eastern most point of the plateau, where it extended into the seemingly endless rainforest that filled the lowlands nearly a kilometer below. Even at the edge of the cliff, it was some 300 meters down to the tops of the trees, themselves much higher than any he’d seen on Earth.

He didn’t like looking straight down the cliff; it always terrified him. He'd never really realized he was afraid of heights, but nothing on Earth gave him an opportunity to stare down from this height. Maybe if the Eiffel Tower was still standing, he would've known, He certainly wasn’t going to look over the cliff today.

He turned away from his fears and glanced back towards his house and barn, just visible most of a kilometer away. His pregnant wife was doing chores there, while tending to their almost three year old son. As soon as he fixed this fence, he would join them again.

He looked again at the broken fence rail. The wood they used for them was stronger than wood back home. It’s what let the trees here grow to most of a hundred meters. He had no explanation how it could be broken, but it was.

He sighed, pulled out the broken halves, and started sliding in the new rail. Something brushed against his leg. Looking down, he saw a thick blue tentacle wrapped around his shin. He froze momentarily in terror, until his instincts overcame his fear. He grabbed a broken rail and stabbed at the tentacle. Again and again, he drove the makeshift spear into the alien limb, attacking his assailant as viciously as he could with each thrust. A gray liquid oozed out of the holes he'd made. The tentacle relaxed its grip and retreated.

For a split second, he felt relief, letting his bated breath escape. Before he could run away, a thicker tentacle was around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. The tentacle was now crushing his chest, not allowing him enough air to breathe, let alone make any noise. In horror, he realized he was helpless against this second attack.

A moment later, he silently disappeared over the edge of the cliff, never to be seen again.

Chapter 1 New Arrivals

“Pierre! Stay away from the fence!” Marianne snapped sharply. She realized that the four year old didn’t understand the danger, but she needed him to respect the rule. She'd already lost her husband to the cliff; she couldn’t risk her son as well.

She shook her head as she thought about it. More than just four year olds didn’t understand the danger. The Nouveau Gaul Plateau Council had their heads up their asses about it. The official report stated that Andre fell off the cliff, his body unrecoverable in the dense jungle at the bottom.

There is no way he fell down the cliff on his own. He hated to go near it. He’d been out fixing the fence. A fence that mysteriously had been broken, its six inch rails snapped like twigs. There were strange markings on the edge of the cliff where he “fell”, some of which looked suspiciously like drag marks. And some other very odd squiggly marks, many that were half a meter across or more. And there was gray ooze near the fence. The investigator took samples, but nothing about it was said in the report, no results of any analysis were ever given to her.

To a limited extent, she’s pretty sure what happened. Something came up the cliff and took him. He did some damage to it, drew blood, or what passed for blood in this alien world, but eventually it dragged him down.

She’d told Eleanor her theory, but Eleanor had told her to keep quiet; the council couldn’t risk news of this getting to the foundation, back on Earth. If they thought there was a dangerous predator hunting settlers on the plateau, they might stop sending new colonists. And new supplies that come with a new ship. The colony was close to being self-sufficient, but it wasn’t there quite yet. If the company abandoned them now, it would effectively be a death penalty for the colony and the colonists.

It was clear the council knew the truth; they’d issued her a plasma rifle. She was the only settler to be allowed one. When they first settled, many of the farms had been plagued by a critter that looked a lot like a white monkey. There had been a cry for the farmers to be issued weapons to rid themselves of the pests. The council finally set up hunting parties until the critters were all eradicated. The council strongly opposed any of the colonists having rifles. And yet, they gave Marianne one. If they only knew how often she visualized vaporizing the entire council, she wouldn’t still have it. But she never went near the fence without it slung over her shoulder.

Pierre back at her side, she walked back to their cabin, Genevieve on her hip. Genevieve was getting antsy, probably hungry. Marianne wanted to sit down in her chair and nurse the year old girl. Raising two young children and maintaining a farm was exhausting as a single mother. Nursing Genevieve was the only time she didn’t feel guilty sitting down, catching her breath. Well, she didn’t feel guilty lying in bed at night, she just felt lonely. She missed Andre. If the exhaustion didn’t take her quickly, she cried herself to sleep.

That night, she woke up in a cold sweat. She was breathing heavily, the nightmare fresh in her mind. Giant tentacles reached across the fence and grabbed Pierre. She tried to fire her rifle, but it never worked in these dreams. Pierre always got pulled down the cliff, screaming for Momma.

Why did she and Andre come here? The question haunted her many nights. She lost Andre and now she lived in terror of losing more. Her life had become constant drudgery, spiced with an unhealthy dose of terror.

In her heart, she knew why they’d come. She regularly had to remind herself it’d been a good decision. They’d been so excited when they were selected as colonists. Life on Earth was hard now, unless you were rich. Ever since most of North Africa became uninhabitable much of the year and the massive migrations started. One by one, the European governments collapsed. Her childhood was dominated by the massive wars that followed. She could still remember seeing the explosions over the horizon from Paris, fifty kilometers to the west. They’d had every reason to expect that Nouveau Gaul would be better than that. And for everyone else, it was.

By the time of the major sunrise, she’d finished milking the goats and made breakfast for the three of them. She was getting used to the 26 hour days on Dorado, but having a major and minor rise from the two stars still felt wrong. This time of the year, they rose at opposite times, with the minor star rising just after the major one set. At least the second star wasn’t that much brighter than the Terran moon, so it didn’t keep her up. It just felt weird. It must all seem normal to Pierre. It was the only way a world had ever worked in his experience.

Still strapped in her chair, Genevieve played with a spoon, while Pierre fed the goats a little hay. This was giving Marianne a chance to clean up from breakfast, at least until hoof steps approached the house.

“Morning, Mar,” Eleanor said as she walked in the door, unannounced.

“Morning, El. What's wrong that brings you here?”

“I figured you hadn’t checked your messages. Every household is required to send a member to the public meeting in three hours.”

“Damn it! I have work to do. Can’t they just send us a summary of what they want?”

“This time they want us all there. Henri’s home, caring for Jean-Luc and Bertrand and getting a few chores done. I’ll take Pierre with me and you can take Genevieve. You don’t have much choice but to bring them and they know that. I can help you with your morning chores before then.”

“Once again, you’re my life saver.”

“I think we literally saved each other’s lives more than a few times back on Earth. These are easy-peasy compared to that.”

Eleanor and Marianne had served their two years together in a peace brigade, mandatory para-military service designed to stamp out the last of the fighting lingering from the war. They’d run into more than their share of hairy situations.

“Pierre is out feeding the goats right now, although it more keeps him occupied with the chore than accomplishes much for the goats. Can you go check on him while I finish cleaning up in here. And then entertain the two of them while I get some work done on the farm. It's so much more efficient when I don’t have to watch after them. And I caught Pierre climbing on the fence yesterday again.”

“I’ll see if he’ll listen to Aunt Eleanor about that rule. He’s growing a streak of not listening to his mother.”

Marianne frowned but had to chuckle at the obvious truth.

Between the two women, they kept the children in line and got the day’s chores done. When it came time to go to the meeting, they mounted their council assigned horses, Pierre riding with his Aunt Eleanor, Genevieve in front of Marianne.