Story:Beyond Schoda

Synopsis
A young Sceen makes the bold step of moving from the controlled safety of an interstellar habitat to the peripheral world of Schoda, which is in the lengthy process of being terraformed. However, an incident beneath the thick clouds of the scorched world leads him on a journey much further than he first anticipated, which could uncover a terrible flaw right in the foundations of the Zambarau Concord's society. In a few decades of interstellar travel, he will see more and meet more than many experience in their whole lifetimes.

This is the first story set in the Zambarau Concord; it is designed to introduce people to the Zambarau Concord in a different perspective than that used by articles.

Chapter 1
Out in interstellar space, over two light-years from any star, an immense, dark, ring rolled through the void. Two thousand kilometres across, five hundred kilometres wide, and with walls along its edges a hundred kilometres high, the slight blue glow of a thick, contained atmosphere can be faintly discerned by the dim light of sources unapparent. Of the surface, it is too dark to make out any features.

Shadows form. The surface is gradually illuminated by an immense blue luminaire, a gentle glow at first, but it soon intensifies to a blinding crescendo of artificial daylight.

The surface is a crooked and angular construct of rock and ice. Glaciers carve their way through mountain ranges that dwarf the rest of the landscape, only to collapse from the edge of great cliffs into gaping ravines below. Great crystals of brine stick jagged out of crevices and all is covered in a generous layer of glistening methane snow, which releases a thin vapour in the morning heat.

All across the landscape are dotted silver vines, suspended against the crushing gravity by silver blue balloons. Forests of great, hollow, silver-blue pillars point skyward; no leaves to be scorched by the oppressively bright sunlight, convection blows plankton out of the holes in their tops to be consumed by silver-grey beasts the size of whales that glide through the wispy white clouds in the blue sky, pinpricks as seen from the ground.

A stripe across the sky - great, wide, faint - depicts a white-and-blue landscape, just as cold, just as real, two thousand kilometres away.

In the early morning, the moment freezes. In the slight breeze, everything is completely still. For a few minutes, there is silence.

Movement. A small mound of snow rustles, giving off a puff of vapour. It shakes again; a small avalance of snow lands at the bottom of a vine, causing one of the balloons to break off and glide through the thick air, scattering its seed as it goes.

Four long, pointed, silver-blue, crab-like legs stretch out from the mound one by one. This is followed by a body of similar colour that looks like squashed chestnut, then four other legs; atop the body are two eyes, moving independantly they flit around as the creature analyses the landscape around it. Moving painfully slowly, it takes several minutes for the creature to completely remove itself from the mound of snow.

Breaking the silence, the creature gives off a series of low pitched barks and groans. In the distance, another creature responds.

"Klatchi! I hear you over there!"