Andromeda, Ants

Greetings to everyone, the following story was inspired by the digital art of @xpilar, I invite you to visit his blog. The picture that motivated this story is the following.

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Fuente

Ants

Captain Ali Norton took a long drink of water from the glass in front of him at the table, which he shared with Captain Miriam Sokolova, in front of members of the fleet council. He settled into the chair and continued with the statement.

-Unlike the inhabitants of the northern region of the continent, those who live in the rest of the territory, were elusive with us, it was difficult to get any information about them, -said Ali.

-Yes, they stayed most of the time in their homes, we reached the continent at dawn, and we noticed no activity in any of their cities, there were abundant sources of radioelectric emissions, but no activity on the surface, - continued Miriam.

-Their cities seemed to be made up of multiple cone-shaped constructions of varying heights, between three and four metres, and a base with a diameter not very large either, between five and eight metres, they seemed to be made of earth or some material similar in appearance to that of the ground, -said Ali, and then he took another sip of the glass-. The constructions were irregularly distributed and distanced, however, each of the cities as a whole occupied a more or less circular area.

-During the night we returned using active camouflage, apparently they did not notice our presence, despite this the activity remained little in most of the cities that we flew over - added Miria, continuing Ali's explanation -. We discovered that they are of nocturnal habits, although it was scarce, all night they had activity, the network of what seemed to be monorail routes in reality were pedestrian footbridges, by which they moved on foot from one place to another, we did not see transport devices of any type, they walked from one side to another.

-The most interesting thing about them was their appearance, we selected some fragments from the video records of the mission so that you could see it for yourselves, -said Ali and after activating its personnel interface, a holographic filming of the surface of the planet and its inhabitants began to be projected in the middle of the room.

-The filming was done mostly using the infrared spectrum, because the lack of illumination was almost absolute, we suppose you are able to see in that band of the electromagnetic spectrum.

In the hologram could be seen dozens of creatures similar to terrestrial arthropods, with segmented bodies covered with what appeared to be a bony exoskeleton, similar to that of ants, had an average height of about eighty centimeters, which could vary from individual to individual, as well as color, which ranged from crimson red to white, passing through the intermediate tonalities and the number of limbs that could go from six to eight, including some individuals with small rudimentary wings, which apparently did not fulfill any function.

Unlike insects, they had two pairs of large eyes, one at the front and the other at the top of the head, with no other feature in what appeared to be their face. Their upper extremities in some a pair in other two pairs ended in what appeared to be hands of three fingers, elongated and thin, one of them apparently collapsible like a thumb.

-As you can see, the creatures moved quickly advancing on their six or eight limbs and straightening up, when they seemed to communicate with each other, which they seemed to do with some sort of tactile symbolic language bringing their upper limbs into contact, -said Miriam as the holographic film continued to be played back-. But they were also able to communicate aurally, for among the audio signals we were able to record there were long audio messages, which at the moment our AI is trying to decipher without much success. Please listen.

A series of strange guttural sounds in low tones could be heard in the room, which seemed to rise and fall in volume and speed in a regular and almost rhythmic way, making them look like some kind of song.

-These sounds don't have an audible frequency, it's infrasound, it's just adjusted to simulate what it might be like if it were audible, -explained Miriam. I think that's all we have to declare counselors," she concluded. I hope our records are of value in getting to know these creatures.

Text of @amart29 and digital art of @xpilar, June 2019

Other stories from the series Andromeda

• Andrómeda / Andromeda
• Mundo Congelado / Frozen World
• Nómadas / Nomads
• Visitantes / Visitors
• Primer Encuentro / First Meet
• Tras Andrómeda / Following Andromeda
• La Declaración de los Capitanes / The Declaration of the Captains
• Ants

I can only thank @xpilar for allowing me to use his digital art in my publication and for motivating my creation. Thank you very much @xpilar

Thank you all for visiting my publication, I hope your comments and I appreciate your support, until next time