The Fluorescent Planet

Captain Nathaniel and his crew land on planet Snarugi, home of the Snarugi people. Snarugi have three body sections, each with two limbs and surrounded by a transparent globe. One globe is filled with chlorine gas, one is filled with formaldehyde gas, and one is filled with ammonia gas. Snarugi have extremely complex biochemistry allowing them to metabolize almost any compound. They are an entire ecosystem unto themselves.

The Snarugi have an energy-based currency, where the value of goods and services is proportional only to the amount of energy it took to supply them, ignoring the costs of time, inconvenience, expertise, benefit to the consumer, and other factors.

Hearing of a new planet discovered far beyond the aerogel asteroid belt, having colors never before seen in history (fluorescents), Captain Nathaniel and his crew join a team of color wizards to extract, concentrate, and ship the new colors. Being so far away, it will take their ship three years to get there, so they go with the Snarugi, who can reach it in nine days.

The new planet has three biomes. Sixty percent of the surface is fluorescent rock, worn in places by extreme winds (there are even wind caves). These plains are inhabited by glittery blobs of fixed but flexible shapes. They nest in the same crevices every night and fit them perfectly. Thirty percent of the planet is “ice stick” forest. Columns of ice roughly the same height jut straight up from the ground, leaving just enough space between them to squeeze through if one takes a circuitous route. Ten percent of the planet is fir forest. These firs have fluorescent, spiral cones. Mouse-sized fluorescent dinosaurs live there. These three biomes exist wrapped around each other on small scales, but with sharp boundaries.

The Snarugi use trazer beams as drills and trazonic shielding for protection from the wind. Trazers are electromagnetic in nature, but the photons are combined differently than in lasers, giving them a silvery look. Trazers can be powerful weapons, but as it turns out not powerful enough for what awaits them on this planet…

A giant crab-like monster attacks the color miners, pushing its way through the trazonic force field and knocking over the mining equipment. It is nineteen meters across. Its shell is fluorescent. It has four claws. Its large left claw has breathing nostrils. The small left claw has the mouth, teeth, and ears. The small right claw has the anus and eyes. It also has a large right claw.

The monster sweeps its large left claw back and forth. All objects made of iron skim along the ground toward it before leaping up and sticking to the left claw. Nathaniel and his friends shoot their lasers while the dozen or so Snarugi shoot it with trazers. They leave a few burn marks on its shell, but the crab seems not to notice. The Crab then brings the point of its left claw down almost touching one of the Snarugi. He suddenly goes limp. Gas and liquids bubble through his skin. A thin stream of dark liquid zips up onto the claw. “It’s an iron ripper! It’s magnetic!” Doctor Bill exclaims.

The color miners abandon their equipment and run into the nearby ice stick forest. The Crab follows them, climbing up on top of the ice, but it is slow and they outrun it. That night, they get little sleep. They work on increasing the strength of their trazers.

Just after dawn, they find The Crab and run underneath it in order to shoot at what they hope is a softer area. Instead, four Snarugi are injured when The Crab lets down stinging tentacles from its belly. “Why does it have so many weapons?” Haticat asks.

“It must be a planet guardian,” Nathaniel says. “It must not like us mining colors from its planet.”

The color miners retreat, leaving the ice stick forest and circling back to their ships the long way. They attempt to call for help from other mining teams (including those of other races), but nearby radiation jams their transmissions. The next night is very windy and they are forced to kill a glitter blob in order to use its nest as shelter in or else be blown away. Nathaniel is very hungry. The blob is inedible and there are no microdinosaurs this far from the forest.

Rounding a hill the next day, they encounter The Crab again. This time, they focus all their power at the eyes, hoping to blind it. The claw with the eyes explodes, but magnetic forces pull it back together. “My scans indicate that seventy percent of its strength comes not from muscles, but from electromagnets attracting and repelling each other, directing the limbs and holding the body together,” Doctor Bill announces.

Not having time to examine the idea further, they run back to the Snarugi base, but The Crab cuts off their path with an ion beam from its large right claw. When it holds its claw almost shut, electromagnets rip electrons off air molecules and propel them forward. Two Snarugi are badly burned. Nathaniel and Fred are partly protected by their fur, feathers, and clothing.

Nathaniel then gets an idea. He plants a bomb on the ground and lures The Crab over it. It explodes and implodes at the same time, chunks of its body tracing wild arcs through the air as it rearranges into a pile of jumbled parts, dead.

The shell turns out to contain valuable metals as well as fluorescent colors. The Snarugi are happy to mine it as well as its planet. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill continue working until their contract expires and they are sent back to planet Snarugi.

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