“Interesting,” Bill said. “There’s a crate of trade goods coming down from the ship in payment for our stay. Tell Miss Moon to pass on that we’re going to be here just long enough to look around, then we’re leaving.”
“She already did,” Miller said. “Anything else, Obi Wan?”
“No,” Bill said, chuckling. “There’s enough security down that I’m headed back to the ship. I guess we won’t be sharing any syrup any time soon.”
“Yeah, get that cycled through to me, will you?” Miller replied. “But, what the hell, when I’m stuck in quarantine at least I’ve got cute company.”
“Is it just me or does this place really make you want to pop your armor?” Guppy asked.
“There with you, pard,” Chuckie said. “This is sweet. I mean, the grass looks like grass if you know what I mean.”
“Just because it looks like grass, it doesn’t mean it won’t kill you,” Staff Sergeant Driscoll said. “Keep the chatter down and keep an eye on your sectors.”
“Staff Sergeant, with all due respect,” Chuckie said formally, “we are watching our sectors. There is not apparent reason to maintain radio silence and there is no other way to pass the time than talking.”
“And I gave you an order, PFC,” the staff sergeant said. “Are you questioning my orders under combat conditions?”
“No, Staff Sergeant,” the former RTO said.
“Then shut up.”
“Hey, Dris,” Sergeant Jaenisch said, walking over. “See anything?”
“You will refer to me as Staff Sergeant Driscoll, Sergeant Jaenisch,” Driscoll said. “And if we had observed any movement we would have reported it.”
“Okay, Staff Sergeant Driscoll,” Jaen replied. “Excuse me for asking. I was just wondering, though, if you’d detected any neenion emissions.”
“Neenions?” Driscoll said.
“A tertiary quark junction,” Jaen said, sighing. “You have read the manual on neenions, right? Because they can cause failure of your quantum subprocessors. We were getting some neenion twitches from your direction. All your suits are a hundred percent, right?”
“I haven’t gotten any red lights,” Staff Sergeant Driscoll said.
“Okay, but keep an eye out for neenions,” Jaenisch said seriously. “You might want Lurch to check your systems when we get back.”
“Thanks for the heads up, Sergeant,” Driscoll said.
“No prob.”
Chuckie cut his transmitter and walked over to Guppy, leaning his armor into the lance corporal’s. By making contact between two sets of armor it was possible, barely, to communicate.
“What the grapp is a neenion?” Chuckie yelled.
“There isn’t any such thing as a neenion!” Guppy yelled back.
“Thought so!”
“PFC Seeley, get back into position!”
“Sorry, Staff Sergeant,” Seeley replied, quickly turning his transmitter back on. “I was doing a neenion check on Lance Corporal Golupski’s armor!”
“Oh.”
“Well, while slightly out of sequence I would say that that was a successful mission,” the CO said to the after-actions group.
The ship was back in orbit, having suffered no casualties and gathered reams of data. They’d also bought one of the flying boards, which was now carefully tucked away. Where the natives had gotten them was still a mystery, but the leader had been more than willing to give one up in return for a crate of steel hatchets and machetes. He’d tried to hold out for one of the M-10s until Miriam got across to him that the “magic” was strictly limited and he wouldn’t be able to recreate it.
“We picked up a mass of data,” Dr. Beach said. “I’m inclined to agree with Dr. Robertson that most of it is going to have to be analyzed on Earth. There is one anomaly about the locals though. Dr. Robertson?”
“We caught a number of small animals, including some which are essentially mammaloform, as are the locals,” Julia said, frowning. “And I was able to gather a hair sample from the natives. The problem is, while the cellular biology of the two groups is close, it’s different enough to make me wonder. Miss Moon, did you get any sense that the locals might not be native to this world?”
“No,” Miriam replied over the video screen. “They have legends of flying ships, but no legends of having come from off-world. But I didn’t get deeply into their legend structure and something like that… Well, there are human legends that have been taken to be evidence of extraterrestrial impact on humanity. But nobody really believes them.”
“Ezekiel’s Wheel,” Dr. Robertson said, nodding. “The Nazca Lines, I understand. But… did they say anything about special food needs?”
“Sort of,” Miriam replied. “They ate the sreee, but they also ate some sort of vegetable or fruit. I just assumed they liked a balanced diet or they picked it up on the way.”
“More likely, it’s a necessity in their diet,” Julia said. “I am fairly certain, based on the biology, that the ‘locals’ are lost star-travelers that found a planet that was close enough to survivable for them to stay. Castaways or maybe a failed colony. There was one plant I found that was closer to their genetic structure than the dozens of others we’ve found. I haven’t been able to gene-type everything, though. For all we know, some of the small mammals may be exotics that came with them. Anyway, that’s the one anomaly and I’m not stating it as a given. It might just be extreme genetic drift. I will say that they are closer to this biology than humans are, and humans are close enough that I feel quarantine is fully justified. Sorry, Chief.”
“No problem,” Miller said, sipping a bulb of cola. “I knew it was going to be quarantine when I opened the suit. I just felt…”
“It was a great help,” Miriam said. “I appreciate it. They were more accepting with a warrior present. They knew I wasn’t one,” she added with a laugh.
“Miss Moon, can you describe the control method of the flying board?” Dr. Beach asked.
“Not really,” Miriam said. “Except it’s like telepathy. I just got on and thought ‘up’ and it went up. From there on I just sort of… flew it and it went where I wanted to go. Ever used a Segway?”
“Yes,” Everette said, chuckling. “I even took a nose dive on one.”
“Well, the board was like that but more so,” Miriam said. “You just lean and it banks. Think where you want to go and it goes. It might be very subtle reading of body clues but… We are not locals. So it is able to read both our body clues and those of the locals.”
“How do they produce them?” the CO asked.
“They don’t,” Miriam said. “New ones turn up from time to time. They just find them while hunting. But rarely. Most of them are handed down over generations. They don’t know where they come from.”
“So the next step, if I’ve read the manual right, is to make contact with a civilization,” the CO said. “Get to work looking over the possible candidates. I’ll give the science team two days to assimilate their data, then we’ll meet again. Among other things, that will give maintenance time to do some work on systems.”
“There may be some neenion contamination,” Staff Sergeant Driscoll said as Lurch opened up the armor.