Outward Borne Read Free

drips from their outermost leaves. These oils
coat minute water droplets to markedly slow evaporation and inhibit
their coalescence so that the fine mist persists as fog and rarely
falls as rain.
    These ancient, slow-growing plants
have thick, rigid, widespread branches that are havens for the
small animals that thrive beneath their protective cover. Small
parasitic plants live on these robust supports. No flowers. Flat
mats of low, broad-leaved ground cover grow within the open spaces
surrounding each plant-island. The thick mist and poor light make
escape easy, and attack must be quick and decisive. Predators are
sedentary opportunists that spend much of their lives lying in wait
for prey. No eagles or sight hounds on this planet. The pungent
atmosphere and limited light precludes most sniffing out, spying,
and chasing strategies. Lurk and leap has always been the order of
the day.
    Night is filled by a flickering
darkness. The sky is black, but a dim variable glow surrounds
phosphorescent plants that pulsate for hours after night arrives.
Quick yellow and green flashes can be seen among the leaves as
small animals signal their presence. Few large animals roam the
stifling, malodorous plains. Solitary grazing animals move among
the clover-like plants and wade knee deep in the shallow bogs.
Smaller beasts flit beneath the sheltering branches of the hard low
shrubs. Long thin creatures populate the bogs and marshes only
rarely emerging from the muck to move and breed. All are covered in
a glistening slime. Nothing lives on ObLa that is not covered by
the foul smelling secretions of its oozing plants.
    A band of stocky, chattering
hexapods disperse among the larger shrubs. They slink silently into
the shadows to wait. These hunters, the leading species on ObLa,
are rather more broad than tall, having six limbs, short in the
rear, longer in front, that lead down from a flabby, hanging folds
of multicolored striped flesh. They have no head that we would
recognize, only a lump with two protruding eyes in front and oval
purple lips below, constantly moving opening, tasting, smelling,
swallowing the air around it. Extremely agile, able to run, swim
and climb using both arms and legs and, when assuming an upright
stance, they can grasp and carry even heavy objects. They are a
versatile platform, open to every opportunity.
    Their smooth salamander-like skin
continuously secretes a slick mucus coat that combines with the
oily mist to mask their scent. The ooze drips from their skin and
smears the ground as they move. They have no evident nose or ears,
but possess two prominent eyes capable of moving separately, and
that mobile, sucking, puckering mouth. With excellent night vision
and acute hearing, they blend into the shadows on the edge of ponds
and pathways to wait with infinite patience for their prey. Sight
and hearing are highly developed, but are warped by the dim
colorless fogbound environment. They see no color; only shades of
gray, often sitting motionless and alert as their surroundings fade
from consciousness, perceiving only movement that disrupts a barely
perceived background. They can sit as if transfixed for hours on
end, perfectly content, having a visual response to movement rather
than color or light, with hearing attuned to the unexpected among
an unwelcome background, and with an ingrained tendency to remain
idle, thinking, but not observing.
    These beings are not cold-blooded,
dimwitted reptile-like brutes lying opened-mouthed waiting for
something to stumble past, though they may appear to be. They were
once a socially communicative species that lived in small groups
throughout the planet’s central regions, a hot, oppressive region
where uneaten kills spoiled quickly in the damp ObLa climate.
Catching prey was difficult and occasional. An isolated adult could
not survive for an extended period. Without food for a few days,
even the strongest weakened and their ability to capture enough to
survive diminished