Lumbro

What is it?

The Lumbro is an armoured ball that lives in herds on Ithera, the system’s temperate planet. It is one of the four creatures in the Aurin bestiary, and the only one that never attacks. It is under a metre long: about the size of a large dog.

In the catalogues it is listed as Lucioniscus volvens. In La Cicatriz people call it the glowlouse, because at nightfall a row of cyan dots lights up along its body. La Cicatriz is where the Arca Aurora, one of the great ships of the fleet that brought the settlers, crashed. Today it is the capital of the five Guilds, trade organisations that take no side.

Where and how does it live?

It lives in Ithera’s wetlands. Its home is the Espejos de Rocío, the wetland where almost every new colonist starts out. There is still water, a low mist that mirrors the emerald sky and no animal that poses any danger. Grey balls graze in groups through the mist. Walk up to them and they keep eating.

It grazes in groups and chitters to keep the herd together. It is so quiet that at around twenty metres you can no longer hear it.

Its enemy is the Ombrask, the great canyon predator. The specimens found dead in the Espejos are usually its prey.

Every few weeks comes the fauna invasion, a migration that overruns La Cicatriz’s defences. The Espejos de Rocío then become the civilian fallback zone. The glowlice move about nervously, but they don’t attack.

Is it dangerous?

No. It never attacks. Nor does it run when it sees you: it carries on even with you standing next to it. Only when you hurt it does it react, and then this happens:

• The whole herd knows within a couple of seconds.
• With the threat on top of it, it closes into an armoured ball. Its shell rings when the shots land.
• If it is still harassed, it rolls slowly away for a few seconds.
• Once it is over, it goes back to its spot.

It has claws for turning over the mud, and nobody has ever seen it use them on anyone.

How do you recognise it?

It looks half giant woodlouse, half crab:

• Plates: greenish grey, like wet stone.
• Belly: pale.
• Between the plates: violet membranes.
• Pincers: short.
• Light: at nightfall, cyan dots light up along its body.

What do you get from it?

The Lumbro carries the most delicate fauna material in the catalogue: the Glándula Bioluminiscente de Lumbro, its bioluminescent gland. It is Grade IV: materials run from Grade I to V, and IV is for exotic ones (the resource guide explains them). It goes into:

• the high-level medicine of The Pioneers, the settlers’ guild;
• the Extracto Bioluminiscente Estabilizado (stabilised bioluminescent extract);
• the Compuesto de Contención Xenológica (xenological containment compound), which sedates instead of killing.

Getting it forces a choice, because it is the only hunting material that comes from an animal that never attacks. Each side settles it in its own way:

• The Zenith, one of the system’s two factions, allow it without a second thought. They call it optimisation.
• The Círculo, the assembly that governs the Nadir from El Fondeadero, their station, limits it by quota. And it condemns abuse.
• Apex Syndicate, the hunters’ guild, has its own rule. The gland is taken from animals that have already died of natural causes or to a predator, never from the herd.

Apex Syndicate’s mission “Rastro de Sangre Verde” asks for six glands. It also warns that tampering with the fauna record comes at a cost: The Pathfinders, the explorers’ guild, study it.

Three tips for anyone who goes near:

• For the gland, follow the remains the Ombrask leaves in the Espejos.
• Beyond twenty metres you won’t hear a herd, even if it is there.
• If you must bring one down, aim for the head before it closes: shut, the shell swallows the shots.

Is it the same everywhere?

No. Wherever there is water and something to eat at the bottom of it, there are Lumbros. Each place changes the shell and, above all, the light: these are its regional forms.