Where the Cowmellopes Roam

Rain has come to Mars. The HSL (Homestead Support & Logistics) Agency is worried about missing Cowmellopes. It's checking around with local farmers and ranchers to see what's up. Seems they're losing control over the carefully engineered genetics of Martian flora and fauna. Mars has weeds. But now an agency man and a homestead widow are discovering something else, that maybe something ancient and Martian has been awoken by the rain, something that was sleeping in the sand. 

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Where the Cowmellopes Roam

(Podcast Script)

The two of them stood there on the porch, rain rhythmically drumming on the metal roof as they stared off into the sky, the rain falling down from an surprise afternoon downburst. They were motionless, wordless. Mavis put her hand out and let the rain that was running off the edge of the roof run over her hand, and then patted it over her face. The downpour lasted only a few more moments and then as quickly as it had begun, it was over. The spell broken Mavis looked down at her hand still wet. She looked over at the man beside her, “Sorry, who would have ever thought, rain on Mars. I never thought I’d see it…”

“I’m not a born Martian like you Mrs. Renfrow, but I get the wonder of it all, amazing.”

The older woman collected herself for a moment, “It just all feels so… reckless, I guess is the word, I’ve spent my whole life with micro drip irrigation, careful hand watering, we always had to be so careful, but now, water everywhere, or kinda I guess. Not like they have back on Earth, but for Mars to see rainfall…”

Mavis lightly chuckled, the spell of the downpour fading, the water already soaked into the thirsty ground. She’d have to check the water collectors later. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t get your name? I’m assuming if you came all the way out this far to the homestead it’s for a good reason.”

“Hi, I’m Mr. Parrish with HSL, Homestead Support and Logistics, I was needing to talk to some of the locals in the district, and saw you were overdue for a HSL inspection, so thought I’d knock both out. If that’s okay with your Mrs. Renfrow.”

“Just call me Mavis. An inspection huh? We hadn’t had one of those in a while. So what can I help you with Mr. Parrish?”

The agency man continued, “Oh, purely a routine inspection, it’s not a full review or anything, we don’t write people up anymore. To be honest, well we’ve noticed a few missing head of Lopes in this district, so we’re asking locals if they’ve noticed or seen anything strange with their herds?”

Mavis nodded, “How do you lose a lope, you can’t kill those things if you tried. Years ago we had one got stuck in a rock outcropping, but their monitor went off and we got to them in plenty of time. Huh, but that was years ago when my husband was still alive.” 

There was a pause before she continued, “Well come on in, we can go over the latest scans and reports, see what we find.”

It was a pretty standard homestead dwelling from the outside, this shady side was low with few windows, the long porch. It was an older home mostly packed regolith fired into hardish bricks with a local solar furnace. . 

Mr. Parrish followed Mavis inside, taken aback a bit by the loveliness of the home. There were glazed tile floors and big open areas, some exotic earth plants. The ceiling swooshed upwards and opened up to a big wall of mostly windows under a protective overhang. 

Mr. Parrish, after taking in the immense expanse of glass and trying to make conversation, “Those windows must have set you back, that’s quite the window. Don’t you worry about meteorites?”

Mavis nodded, “well that’s was more in the early days and now seems Martians are just used to the idea of little windows, but the atmosphere has gotten thick enough to take out most of the small stuff. For the bigger ones that’s why there’s the overhang. There’s been a few tiny dings in the glass over the years, but it’s actually been nice to have all the light.”

Mavis took in the view, “Something my husband insisted on. He didn’t understand settlers coming to Mars and then hunkering down into printed caves where you couldn’t see anything. If you’re going to fly out millions of miles, you want to see where it is you came to. It is a lovely view don’t you think?”

The agency man shrugged, “Well, it’s Mars, lots of regolith and rock.”

Mavis added, “But you have to agree, beautiful it it’s own way.” She pointed to a view finder in front of the window. “Take a look.”

The agency man looked into the viewer and after a few minutes, “So yeah, more regolith and rock… just up close.”

Mavis grinned, “Watch this.” Her fingers played over her personal assistant pad and transferred the image from the viewing machine to the large wall display. Then typed in some coordinates.

“And what do you think of that?”

The wall showed a ravine, but there were clearly plants growing, small grasslike ground cover gave a brownish-green cast to the ground. There were succulent shrubs of a sort, mostly just green stems. Then there was a tree, definitely a tree. 

Mr Parrish conceded, “A nice little garden, I guess a folly so you have something to see outside the window.”

Mavis shook her head, “Believe me no folly, we didn’t plant any of that. If you notice that tree, it’s not exactly out of the catalog.”

The agency man shook his head, “but the forage grass, the food supplement shrubs, the shade trees for the lopes. They’re all carefully designed and they’re sterile hybrids. You have to get the seeds or the plants from the District Nursery, it’s always been that way.”

Mavis laughed at his confusion, “It would seem Mr. Renfrow Mars has weeds, and now, and now we’re watering them.”

The agency man turned serious, “Can I get a capture of this image?“

The agency man was obviously flustered, in Mavis’s experience, they seemed to get that way easily. Homesteaders were more go with the flow types. She realized what this meant though, the agencies liked to keep tight control over the seeds and plants that were used. They liked that sense of power. They argued that it was necessary, that plants and animals on Mars had to be carefully engineered for the environment. New plants and animals introduced gradually after lots of testing. But now it seems they were losing that control as plants had somehow propagated, even changed, were adapting. Mars was seeing evolution for the first time in ages. 

Even the ridiculous Cowmellopes or “Lopes” as they were called had been engineered for Mars. Part cow, part camel, part African antelope, part a dozen other animals all to make the perfect Martian grazing animal, You’d think they’d just thrown a bunch of animals in a blender, but no, these were carefully engineered by advanced AI programs. Even the name was engineered to make them feel user friendly and non threatening, all part of a marketing plan. Sort of a diversion from how frankensteined they were.”

Mavis was suddenly afraid she’d said too much, she was stuck out here and the loneliness gets to you. The agency man had been the first real person she’d seen in months. Despite the vid meetings and calls, there was something about seeing a person in the flesh. Plus it was a secret that probably needed to be shared, there was something going on out in the plains. 

Mavis changed the subject “Well, let’s pull up those tracking reports.”

She noticed that the agency man made himself right at home, something that troubled Mavis a bit. It’s just these agency types had a way of coming in and acting like they owned the place. Mavis realized she was hardly used to having people around, much less these district types.  

They spent the next couple of hours going over the data, and it seemed that there were actually a couple/three head of lopes that hadn’t moved in a couple of days, and they were all clustered together, odd. Lopes never moved a lot, but they did tend to ramble from grass patch to grass patch from shade grove to shade grove. The agency man, Mr. Parrish, who had at first been friendly enough and chatty, became increasingly somber. 

After hours going over scans, but always coming back to that cluster of three still trackers, he said very little. Even when they took a break and she made a Lope stew with some of the local tubers and spice plants from the garden, he seemed preoccupied. He started to head out in the last afternoon, thanking her for her time. 

“Thanks, the stew was good and the coffee, just what I needed.”

Mavis, “Do you need anything for the trip? Who’s next?”

The agency man checked his data watch “It’s the Stancils.”

“Wait I have something for you.” Mavis walked through the kitchen to a pantry and after looking around came back with a couple of jars. She stopped by the kitchen counter and filled a thermos. 

“Mr. Stancil loves my Gem Berry Jam, they’re from the orchard out back, take him a jar, it may make him a bit more friendly and talkative you can save the other jar for yourself. Take this thermos of coffee with you as well, for the road.”

The agency man looked at the jars in his hand, “I’d always heard of this stuff, but never tried it, you never see it in the central habitats.”

“Something else we homesteaders like to keep to yourselves. I assume you’re camping tonight in your rover, Enjoy your time out in the plains. Check your computer and see when Phobos flies over, with a decent viewer you can see some of the new cracks. One day you may have great grandchildren and you can tell them how you remember when Phobos was still one big rock.”

“Thank you ma’am, I best be getting on.” 

She watched him get into his rover, a nice standard district model, then waved as he got in and took off across the plains. She later relaxed in her favorite chair with some tea looking out the big window. Then before it got too dark, she sent out the drones to drop off feed for the lopes, checked all the monitors to make sure the well pumps were filling the watering stations, then called it a night. 

Mavis woke the next morning and there was an odd noise, an alarm going off on her assistant. She opened up the notification and it took her to the tracker app. No message, no ID, just an emergency beacon going off in the plains. She noticed though that it was between here and the Stancil homestead. Could it be that agency guy?

She made some coffee for the trip and geared up, she’d take the trike it was faster than her rover. She checked the beacon one last time before leaving, no change. She sent a message to the authorities, they’d no doubt picked up the beacon as well, but who knew when they’d get there. Even at her age she didn’t mind these trips out in the plains. She often took 2-3 day trips to inspect the herds and get blood samples for testing. She grabbed her helmet, her breather to help with the thin air, her protective clothing and her communication devices. You didn’t want to be stuck out on the plains with no comms, which made her think, why had the agency guy just gotten off the beacon, but nothing else. She grabbed her walking stick in case she had to check out the area it could be a long day, especially with her bad knee. 

After a few hours of the wire mesh tires zipping over the ground, Mavis saw a glint in the distance. As she got closer she realized yeah it was the agency rover. As she got even closer she saw a camp table turned over, some odd marks around the open door. 

She saw something odd on the ground, she had to think about what it was for a moment. A gun, an earth gun, but why would anyone need a gun out on the plains? It was an Earth thing, Mars had no predators.

Mavis muttered to herself, “What trouble did you find out here Mr. Parrish, Mr. Agency Man?” she regretted now not knowing his first name. 

She went around behind and saw a huge hole ripped out of the rover.

She looked at her assistant and checked the map. This location was between her homestead and the Stancil’s but not quite, he was a little off the line. Then she remembered, the spot with those transmitters was close by, the agency man must have decided to check it out. 

She scanned for those and yeah they were just a few hundred meters off to the north. 

She took pictures of and around the rover and sent to the authorities. As she got ready to head north, she saw something glint in the sand and walked over. It was her jars she’d given the agency man. But no jelly in sight something had broken them open, had licked the jars clean. Then she saw a few dark drops in the sand, it could be blood. Something obviously violent happened here. 

Some people might have gone home at this point, but Mavis was a Martian. Martians grew up in an engineered world, so unlike Earth, there were no snakes, no wolves, not bears to worry about. There were no predators. So Mavis was oblivious to any sense of danger that would have sent any Earthling running. 

She got on her trike and headed north, not knowing just what she was looking for. Checking the scanner, she finally pinpointed the signals, coming from a small grove of shade trees. These were designed to give some shelter for the lopes. She remembered when they first planted trees in this area, maybe 30 years ago, dropping the plants from the utility drones. Then having drones routinely fly out and drop water. Things grew slow on Mars, but they were easily 15-20 feet tall now, they hadn’t needed extra water in a while. Suddenly something caught her eyes under the trees, but she smelled something before she saw it clearly. A rotting Lope corpse. As she got closer she adjusted her breather mask to filter out some of the smell. 

Mavis, inspected the carcass, something had burst out from the inside. She saw in places the skin was moving, as if something was underneath. She took her walking stick and pushed the flap of skin back. Something looked back at her. She had no idea what it was though, she froze as wet black eyes stared up a bit then went back to eating the Lope flesh. There were several sets of big bulging black eyes, a set of pincers, but on a furry body with several legs that seemed randomly stuck on. What the hell?

Then there was another that poked it’s head out, this one was a little different more crablike with shell segments and insect like legs. Then there was another. After taking a few pics, Mavis pulled the skin back over to cover them up. 

They were some sort of mutation, some sort of crazy mix of Cowmellope and some sort of crab/grub/insect thing. She walked through the small grove of trees a bit and saw the other two missing Lopes. They were picked clean, just skeletons with a bit of flesh, skin hanging on. She noticed several more of those grub things, but they were all dead. She looked closely and they were all a freakish mishmash of – things. Cowmelopes were a genetic hodgepodge as it was but these things seemed to be random mixes of the lopes and all that went into them…, and something else. But seems the genetic game that was being played here didn’t produce a lot of winners. 

She then noticed that there were trails in the sand, some of them had wandered off. She remembered from an old Earth biology class, reading about how sea turtles on earth hatched in great numbers, but most were eaten, but a few would end up making it. Sometimes nature played the numbers game, was that what was going on here?

She was able to grab one of the creatures for a better look, pick it up with a firm grip behind the head, but not before it set off this loud siren whine. She put the squirming thing back, and it crawled away into the sand.

Then she sensed something off to the side, sensed some movement, but when she looked over she caught what was maybe just a shifting of sand. Were her old eyes playing tricks on her?

Finally that old ancient sense of being hunted, being stalked from her ancestral Earth genes finally kicked in. She started walking back to her trike, something, not good, was going on here. Then she sensed a shadow on her back, and slowly, ever so slowly turned around. 

The thing was maybe 8 meters long and had raised itself up a few meters as it looked down at her. It stared at her, or at least she guessed as much, a row of eyes along the leading edge of its carapace seemed to take her in, the closest ones on small stalks turned towards her. Below the eyes a set of undulating feathery, fingerlike extensions she thought grouped around a mouth. The impression was crab like, insect like, but that was her mind trying to make sense of it, it was like nothing she’d ever seen. It was she realized truly Martian. 

After the initial shock wore off, she started to wonder what kind of damage something like this thing could do? Was she actually in danger? Those unfamilar Earth genes were screaming at her. She started to slowly back away, but the thing was locked on her, it’s body slowly waving in the air like a snake. 

That was when she stepped on something in the sand, it was the agency man, or what was left of him. She knew then this thing was dangerous, was deadly. 

It seems something had been woken up, something that had been asleep a long long time. Something that had, long ago, been waiting in the sand for a rain that never came, for life giving moisture. She realized she was looking into the face of something truly ancient and Martian. 

When the rains finally had come and it had awakened to find it’s land full of carefully crafted tasty bags of genetic material. It’s Martian genetics were old, countless millennia older than the Lopes. It’s biology was different, it’s genes apparently were not quite so picky as earth genes, while Mars had dried out those genes had become desperate. When they were now given another chance they seemed eager to take it. 

And now they found the perfect playground. Most of the monstrosities begat by this giant Martian millipede and the Cowmellopes seemed to be still born, or not viable, especially in such a harsh environment, but by chance some would live, perhaps thrive.  

Mavis continued to back up, but stopped when she felt a segmented tail wrap around her legs, then start to move up. Then suddenly, out of somewhere a stinger appeared and jabbed her in the back. She cried out, the giant Martian Millipede just stared at her, a malignant survival machine. Mavis felt the worm closing around her, she heard her bones crack but felt nothing, her body numb and frozen from the sting. Then as her consciousness slipped away, her lips moved one last time “damn rain.”