We were limited to studying the creature life in the area immediately surrounding the landing site. Due to the high gravity, five times what we get back on Earth, we had to wear old, run-down powered exoskeletons anywhere outside the ship's native field.
The landing site being in the middle of one of the planet's large deserts didn't make thing better for us biologists. What can I say. When you hitch a ride with the Geologists Guild you'll soon learn to appreciate those few planetfalls that are not being made in volcano calderas.
The desert itself proved unchallenging; the gravity had long since packed the sand into some nearly unpenetrable mass, making snowshoes redundant. We had a few trips outside the first day after landing, without seeing anything of interest. The geologists, however, were all over the place with hovercrafts and buggies, studying the curious thin erosion lines criss-crossing the hard-packed desert sand.
One morning half a week later, however, there were tracks. Our little contigent turned a general crazy; we like tracks. The tracks in question were a score of straight lines of turned earth crossing diagonally underneath the ship. They seemed to be going in straight line from horizon to horizon.
Crawling on all fours, our exos rendering us in undignified poses, we had a close look at the individual tracks. They seemed to be arranged into sets of three; a wide one, from 20 to 40 centimeters across, between two narrow trails of only a few centimeters width. The main track looked like ploughed ground, with sand in big chunks filling a trench. The side tracks, however, were merely neat cuts into the hard ground.
The whole thing made our rock-hugger colleagues a little confounded: It was suddenly apparent that the erosion lines were in fact old tracks in various directions, still visible due to the relatively slow erosion of the hard desert sand. We had a great time making fun of them, until it occured to us that without a scientific interest, the expedition would soon leave the area. And we still hadn't seen any of the mysterious creatures.
We got a little desperate, to be honest. We were certain the tracks' owner possessed an unique means of automotive locomotion. McSweeny got the most desperate, breaking into the ship's ansible chamber to direct a plea to the Scientific Society back on Earth. They heard our prayers, and ordered the departure postponed until we had our info. This would mean trouble as soon as we got back home. Probably sooner, although then on a less formal basis. Oh well.
So we pulled the buggy back out out the garage (they wouldn't let us handle the hovercraft) and set off following the tracks in what we guessed, 50-50, was the right direction. It was just one day since we'd discowered the tracks, so we figured they wouldn't have got far. And right we were. A couple of hours after losing sight of the ship, we could glimpse some lumps in the sand ahead. We closed in with glee.
Let's see if I can adequately describe these aliens. They reminded us at first about armadillos, with hard, armoured bodies, but they soon appeared to have a more sophisticated anatomy. I would separate the body of an individual, tre meters long, nearly a meter tall, into four main parts.
First the main body, probably holding most vital organs, a big lump within a all-bone carapace, without any visible eyes or mouth.
Then, on each side of the body, a leg-like extremity. Now I say leg, but these ones had nothing to do with walking. They were more like huge knuckles with an edge cutting into the ground (thus the narrow tracks), held about half a meter apart from the main body on each side. It would be fitting to compare these "legs" with the outriggers of triamaran ships on Earth. As I move on the final body part, you will see the meaning of this comparison.
The final part of the creature's body, placed immediately behind the main part, was what really caught our interest. This was the only moving part of the creature. It was, simply, a screw, like the one you find in a meat grider, going counter-clockwise, dug deep into the ground. It was slowly rotating, digging through the hard-packed sand, propelling the creature forward while we were looking. Some sort of musculature within the screw was turning it. A biological impossibility! Like creatures with wheels, pure fantasy! But here we saw it all.
While we marvelled at the sight, something else started happening to the creature. The screw started slowing down, and soon the creature was standing still. A tremor shook the main body, and then the screw part was lifted clean out of the sand. In a blur, the screw span the opposite direction, showering us with chunks of sand and pebbles, until finally slowing down. The screw fell back into the sand, and movement resumed.
What a sight! Every now and then, one of the creatures would stop, raise its screw-foot and unwind the whole thing (probably rubber-like tendons on the inside), spraying the whole place with sand and dust. Their speed was not great, like slugs, but the movement was clearly visible, making a whispering noise as the stabilizer feet slid through the sand. All over the desert, back and forth, forever.
