Girl Who Came Shrinkwrapped

Bypassing the cold outer planets for the ones nearer the sun, I leisurely stroked in to the sixth planet out. It looked entirely sheathed in ice. Dog-paddling to planet number five, I found this one more to my liking. With four medium-sized continents spread about its girth, and one giant continent at the south pole, it looked surprisingly like Earth. I chose the continent most like that of North America, and waited near to the planet's orbit for it's next pass.

This time, anticipating the planet's speed, I got out in front and let it catch up to me. The maneuver worked well, for as the blue and green world began to approach, I matched it's orbital speed and waited in orbit. When about half the size of the moon--our moon; this planet had no moon of its own--I let myself sidle a little closer. When down to maybe ten miles tall, I let the planet grab me and pull me down. Making my way through the atmosphere like a surf boarder without a board, I made a perfect landing a hundred miles off the coast. I even remembered my shoes.

Arriving some few minutes later at the eastern coast, I waded carefully ashore. Guarded by massive, vertical cliffs all along its length, the coastline was both formidable looking and barren. Nothing had dogged my footsteps as the "whales" had done on the gaseous people's planet, and seeing no life here, not even birds, made me concerned.

Stepping carefully up onto the plateau, I stood among broken patches of vegetation and broken rock. I put back on my shoes.

Perhaps a mile tall now, I looked over the same broken-forested landscape for miles and miles and miles. A wide yellow river wound sluggishly across the plateau, disappearing at the foot of a distant precipice, another plateau. Following the river's direction, if not its course, I made my way toward this formation. After a five minute walk and a loss of a few hundred feet, I found myself looking at a great green expanse of steaming, prehistoric jungle. I saw huge fern-like growths of shrub and sweltering swamps and cliffs. Not a breeze stirred and nowhere was there a sign of life.

Wow, I thought. Discovery Channel time.

Then I felt something watching.

Standing near a towering cliff, I now saw a long row of caves just above a ledge, half way up the cliff's face. Even as I watched, a tiny figure emerged from one of the caves and moved cautiously out onto the ledge. It kept low to the ground, terrified, ready to flee at my slightest wrong move. Maybe any movement all. I stood there, staring back, feeling eerily like the Professor must have felt.

When he didn't flee, and I didn't move, the figure was joined by others. They began to chatter and gesticulate with their hands, which looked vaguely human; I sensed that my appearance had inflamed their superstitious fears and now I was a god. Or a monstrosity sent by their gods to destroy them.

Squat, heavily muscled and covered with hair--and these were the females--the creatures were obviously barbaric. Although still too small to distinguish their features, the creatures were four-limbed and stood erect; they all carried crude weapons. They looked like Neanderthals in the movies.

Suddenly, one of them raised a bow as tall as himself and let fly a tiny arrow. It fell far short of my position, but the shot was enough to establish his place as leader of the pack and that I should fear his contempt and bravura. I wanted to laugh, but I didn't. I might be a half mile tall, and able to smash these things with one swat of my palm, but that wouldn't remain true long. I had better get out of here, I thought, or make friends fast.

Raising my hands to show I meant no harm, I backed slowly away. The creatures went wild. Jumping up and down and gesticulation madly as the others screamed and yelled, the leader raised his bow and fired again.

Huh?

Suddenly the leader dropped flat and, shielding his eyes from the sun, scanned the jungle below. I began to comprehend. Evidently, a hunting party was out, and he was afraid I'd squash them flat. I feared I'd squash them flat also. Lifting my feet one at a time--comical looking, I'm sure, if the circumstances were different--I checked where I stood. No squashed little Neanderthals, thank God.

Peering hard into the dank vegetation below--nearly impossible, with clouds of steam hanging low in the surrounding trees--I presently caught the faint sound of shouting. Appearing suddenly in a long single file, barbarian hunters ran at full speed along a well beaten path. They burst into the very clearing in which I stood, and skidding and sliding to a halt, started screaming in terror. Evidently, it was the first time they had seen me.

Dropping the poles upon which they had strung the carcasses of the day's hunt, they fell flat to the ground and began to wail in terror as a group. All except one, who burst from the tangle of trees at just that instant, and despite seeing me, tried to rouse his friends. Yelling angry and guttural syllables and gesticulating wildly, he pointed back along the path.

Then I heard it, a terrifying roar.

Jesus Christ, I thought. That sounds like a fucking t-Rex!

Reacting to the bellow, the Neanderthals scrambled to their feet and grabbed up their weapons off the ground. They forgot me as well, as well they should, and formed a defensive semi-circle facing the path. The monster roared again.

As it happened, the limb of a very large tree overhung the path, and the party leader clambered up some overhanging vines and crouched low upon it. One of the warriors fastened a vine to a large, clumsy looking weapon, and the one in the tree drew it up.

Consisting of a large pointed stake some eight feet long, with two heavy stones fastened at its waist, the leader took the weapon and carefully balanced it on the limb, directly over the path, pointed down. The remaining semi-circle of hunters crouched behind their lances, set at an angle in the ground. There was another loud, shuddering roar and if not having been an quarter of a mile high, I'd probably have run away.

Suddenly, the beast appeared and I marveled all the more that the Neanderthals didn't run away. From ground to shoulder, the stood twenty feet tall, and was fully fifty feet long. Of obvious dinosaur descent, each of its front legs ended in a wide, horny claw that could have ripped any of the hunters to shreds. Its long tapering tail was horny as well, leaving the impression the thing was partly reptilian. It had curved fangs, two feet long.

For a long moment the t-Rex just stood there, tail switching back and forth, eyes glaring in angry consternation at the semi-circle below. Then, as it tensed its mighty hind legs for the spring, the warrior on the tree limb above launched his weapon--launched it with himself attached! Feet pressed hard against the heavy stone balance, the warrior let out a shriek.

Reacting with a speed I found unbelievable for its bulk, the t-Rex spun aside, and the pointed stake drove deep into the ground, sending its rider tumbling head over heels into the monster's right foot. The Neanderthal lay there stunned, waiting for the t-Rex to eat him. Which the t-Rex surely would. But, just as it raised it's massive head and prepared to finish the leader off, the rest of the hunting party sprang forward, emitting a warbling cry. The beast snapped forward again; it snarled in rage. Going low to the ground, the stunned Neanderthal momentarily forgotten, the t-Rex sprang forward and charged the group, the group's lances snapping ineffectively off its armored hide as the circle broke and fled for the trees. Three of them never made it. One was picked off in a flash by the monster's vicious jaws, while two others got cut down by its tail. All this happened in seconds.

"What are you waiting for!" I yelled.

Breaking my paralysis, I swung my hand down in huge flat arc just as the beast sprang for a second time. I caught it in mid air, smashing it hard against a tree Then I smashed it again as the monster scrambled to its feet, seeming to see me for the first time. Its final action was a snarl of rage as it stooped low and then sprang at my descending hand. I smashed it flat against the ground--I heard its bones break. The monster twitched not a muscle, lying dead as a dark red stain of blood oozed outward from beneath him.

While I battled my suddenly rebellious stomach, the natives stopped in their tracks and jabbered noisily among themselves. They fearfully kept their distance, pointing both at me and at their flattened foe. Only the one who had plunged downward from the tree had seen exactly what happened; as he rose unsteadily, glaring half-contemptuously at the others, he slowly approached my feet. It must have taken a great deal of courage, for, crouched low as I was, I still towered above the tallest trees. He looked at me in reverent awe. Then, falling to his knees, he beat his head upon the ground several times, and the others followed suit.

For an hour, I meandered back in the direction of the coast. I had done what each captain of the many Starship Enterprise's had done: broken the Prime Directive. I needed to think.

When the natives finally got over their awe, they went to work on the carcass of the fallen beast. From their talk and their gestures, I gathered they wanted to take it back the caves; it would take a hundred of them to lift it. So, being the pushover that I am, I picked the thing up by its long scaly tail, and walked with it back to the cliff face. By now, my height was probably about six hundred feet, and the monster the size of a rat. I shuddered as though it were a rat. It dripped blood, and I wanted none getting on my shoes so I held it well out in front. Were there any present, I'm sure my friends would have laughed. I was the only human present.

Placing the carcass on the ledge, I turned and walked away. I wanted no more interaction with these primitives than what I'd already had. I could well imagine the legends that would grow up around me. I wondered what strange cave drawings would be found on the walls of this cliff in another fifty thousand years. By then, a civilization would cover this entire globe: a civilization rising by slow degrees out of the muck and the mire and the myths of the dawn of time. And doubtlessly one of the myths would concern a great, god-like creature who had descended from the skies and had leveled great trees in its stride. And great men, great thinkers, of that future civilization would say: "Preposterous! A stupid myth."

The sun was far over in the western sky and the shadows growing long. The atmosphere had a familiar orangish tinge to it and I felt immensely lonely again. I thought about Todd; I thought of my mother. I wondered who would call the police first. I was just on the verge of breaking into tears when I felt, rather than heard, a rush of wings above and behind me. I threw myself flat on the ground, and just in time, for the great shadowy shape of some huge creature swept down and sharp talons raked across my back. I looked up just in time to see the creature winging its way back low over the swamps. Its wing spread must have been forty feet. I got up and hurried back toward the coast, keeping a close watch behind me.

Reaching the shore and their protective cliffs, I sat down to wait. I was my normal size. Then, deciding this was as good a time and place as any, I got up again and lowered my panties. I squat down over my shoes. I did what every girl dreads having to do in public and did it with nary a care. There was no one to watch me.

As urine began to splatter against the fractured rocks, I brushed lightly at something in the dirt. I brushed at it some more. Then I pried it out of the earth and, with a mounting sense of alarm and dread, I saw the not quite visible outline of something level with the ground, something seemingly laid out in straight lines to form a rough box, something that I would swear was the outline of a house. Getting back to my feet and getting my panties in place, I swung around in a circle and then walked off the outline myself. It was a foundation all right, one made of concrete.

The building it used to support was maybe thirty feet deep by sixty feet long, with a front porch stoop and the remains of a walk. I backed off fifty feet to consider. I looked back the way I had come.

Fifty thousand years for civilization to advance and spread across the globe? Perhaps it already had. Perhaps fifty thousand years had passed since the last civilization ended and the new one had begun. Because what I had seen glinting in the long rays of the sun and had dug out of the earth, and what was now in my hand, was the time-worn remains of a coin. Most of the lettering was gone and the features were worn smooth, but enough remained of a face to see. The face of someone startlingly human-like. . .and female.

At last I stood on a single grain of sand. Other grains of sand towered around me like smoothly majestic mountains. In the next few minutes I experienced the change from being a microscopic organism on a gigantic world, to a gigantic organism floating in microscopic space. As I became smaller and the distance between galaxies grew, I picked one at random and paddled in. The system I chose had a brilliant white star with a far smaller, dimmer red companion and seven planets in orbit. When I approached the fourth planet out from the sun, I got a surprise. . .there was a spaceship.

The size of an eyelash and made from something brightly metallic, the little projectile left stationary orbit around the planet's single large moon and came out to meet me. I halted my movements to see what they would do. I hoped they weren't planning on firing some kind of weapon at me--less out of fear than wondering what I'd do in response. I was still as big as their planet.

After a few minutes/months the space ship drew close to my waist and a smaller, more mobile craft was dispatched. It circled about me with slow methodical grace, then dropped in a long curve to land gracefully on my chest. I felt no more than if a fly had landed. It made me want to giggle.

As I watched, a square section swung outward from the hull and a number of beings emerged. I say "beings" because I could discern no human traits. Gold in color and the size of pinpoints, a dozen of them gathered in a group outside the ship.

After a few moments, to my utter surprise, they spread tiny golden wings and scattered in various directions; they flew low over the surface of my coat. This time I did giggle. These "birds" were using my "atmosphere" to explore their strange new "world."

After a time, they must have decided I was not hostile, because they returned to their ship. I wished I could have seen one at closer range, but none ever approached my face, nor came closer than the midpoint of my chest . The section of hull swung closed again and the ship lifted gently and without visible means of propulsion from my chest, and rejoined its mother ship. Then they swooped off into space toward their returning planet and I took that as an invitation to visit. I had no idea how badly they wanted my presence.

The planet itself was red tinged and encircled by a continuous belt of land. Land dominated most of the northern and southern hemispheres, leaving two, rather smallish oceans north and south. As the planet drew close, I made out numerous space stations in orbit around it, and numerous more in orbit around the moon. Dozens of ships, both smaller and much larger than my original craft were in orbit too. But only around the moon. And the closer I got, the more spaceships I saw. I counted them in the thousands, all around the moon.

"Joanna," I whispered. "There's something wrong here."

But I was beyond having a Plan B. It was either this planet, or its moon. And I would not land in an airless void.

Working myself into position before the planet, I saw something else troubling I hadn't seen before. The bird people had erected a series of protective enclosures on the face of the moon. Miles across and at least a mile high, each enclosure was of the exact same size and height. They were constructed of interlocking octagonal plates. What could only be a series of gun emplacement ringed tightly around the crown and about each domes periphery where hundreds more. I saw little winged creatures flitting about the surface. What had I gotten myself into here?

Growing smaller by the minute, I almost chose to swim away from the planet and head for the fortified moon. The creatures needed air to breathe, or at least to fly through, so there must be air in the domes. Would they let me inside? Somehow, I tended to doubt it.

Staying where I was, I allowed the planet to get me in its gentle grip, and I began to descend. I was going in bigger this time, about twenty miles tall; I had no intention of getting caught out. Not if I had to fight.

Landing in a huge, inland sea--I basically just plunked down--I squat low to clear the thin layer of clouds blocking my view. Only it wasn't clouds at all, but an overlay of dust.

The shore was perhaps forty miles off, and strewn with debris. Huge piles of crushed and twisted metal marked where a city had once stood, and where even now, columns of smoke and dust evidenced its ongoing destruction. The destruction went on as far as the eye could see, and my eye was ten miles high.

"Oh, my God," I whispered. "What have they done?"

Only the question really was: What had been done to them? The bird people, I was sure, were all on the moon.

Duck-walking in closer to shore, I stopped five miles out and waited. They couldn't miss my presence here. But even though I waited for a full five minutes, no one took interest.

Then I began to see them. Moving in and out and around the mountains of rubble were a legion of busy machines. They were huge and they were small, incredibly complex and utterly simple. Some moved on caterpillar-like tracks, while others walked upright on two legs. Some walked jerkily on four, six or eight legs, while others flew through the air. As far as I could see, they spread out in every direction, cutting and torching and crunching on steel. There was no coordination amongst them and no two machines worked together; every machine seemed to be its own boss.

"This is crazy," I said. I moved in a little closer. "What in the hell is going on?"

But I knew. The civilization the bird people had created, probably over a million years old, was resolutely being demolished by their own machines. Machines that somehow had developed intent, if not intelligence, and now had the planet to themselves. A Terminator future, for real.

I had been noticed.

Two immense mobile cranes with huge shovel jaws had stopped their consumption of debris. They stood and watched me from the shore. They stood on great jointed legs, had segmented girder-like arms, and towered a good half mile tall. Each arm ended in a huge, pincer-like claw, and those claws slowly opened and closed. A shudder ran up my back.

This is something out of a movie, I thought. Make them go away.

Only they didn't go away. Instead, in heretofore unseen coordination, the huge metal cranes strode forward into the water and headed my way. They moved with identical and ungodly precision; the movement of each machine mirrored the other. They raised their ugly twin claws.

"Okay!" I yelled, suddenly loosing my temper. "See how you like this!"

Planting my left hand in the lake bottom, I swung around with my right foot, catching both erector set monsters in the chest. Despite the clumsiness of the move, they flew satisfyingly apart, arms and steam-shovel heads sailing willy-nilly through the air. Some parts made it back to shore. The rest splashed down in the water.