Page 19 of Stellar Drift
“I am, thank you.I just sent you new visual data.Any news?”
“No perimeter breaches.No alerts.No messages.”The slight edge to his tone hinted at boredom.She could almost imagine him tapping a foot.He did sometimes rely on her to keep him entertained.
“Okay.I’m guessing we’re ninety minutes from the wide, overgrown ridge you can see in the recording I just sent.You could check our initial landing records to see if they compare.”
“Will do.”The end-of-comms tone sounded.
That would keep him busy for a while.The initial landing had been a barely controlled tumble through the planet’s atmosphere and a hard landing that embedded the ship in what turned out to be a hidden columnar basalt cave.The flight images were fragmented and missing both time and spatial orientation data.In the three and a half years since they’d awakened, they’d only managed to pair up about twenty percent of their images with the maps they’d made.
“Everything okay at home?”Houyen asked.
“Green-go.”She turned to look at him.“Left to the lake or right to the ridge?”
“The ridge, while we still have dry weather.”He cast a resentful look at the thick tree canopy.Though stunted, the trees were still a dozen meters tall.“I miss the sunlight.”
“Come on, Kyala.Let’s go find the ranger some sun.”
The ridge turned out to be more of a challenge than any of her cameras had shown.From the angle where she now stood, she could see that the ridge was actually a lower, thicker section of rock, with a thinner, higher formation above it.Vines and strangler roots trailed over and down from the top like a curtain.The topography reminded her of her home-sweet-cave, but it wouldn’t have fit a whole exploration starship.A high-low utility flitter, maybe.
Unfortunately, they’d lost more than an hour of hiking because the right-hand path toward the ridge had run into a sheer cliff face.The rocks there looked old and weathered, like they’d been shoved upward when the volcano had formed.They’d had to retrace their steps and go around the lake to get access to the ridge.
The overgrown, shallow lake would never be featured in any wilderness tourist guide.It was a haven for mosquitoes and midges, and the air in the vicinity left an unpleasant, moldy aftertaste in her mouth.According to both Houyen and Kyala, the stench was nearly unbearable.However, that didn’t stop the ranger from holding his nose and cautiously wading in to collect samples.
He stomped to get some of the mud off his boots and waterproof pants, then headed toward the tree where she waited.The area seemed to be a microclimate transition point, where the forest below gave way to dry rocks and windy upper reaches.
Once he got close enough to show her his prize, she could smell what had Kyala rubbing her nose with her paw.Luckily, Sairy was usually able to ignore most bad odors after a few minutes.
“This is what we’re looking for.The lake has hundreds of them, all dead.I sent a flat image to Phen, and she confirmed it.”He held up a clear vial holding murky water and a grayish, bulbous-bodied insect about nine centimeters long.It looked like a miniature armored ground transport with fat legs and big, ugly mouth parts where a front engine would be.Living in the middle of a rainforest had given her a better appreciation of nature, but she didn’t have to like all of it.
“I can sort of see the resemblance,” she said, “but it’s so pale.”Adult wuzzy bugs were a coppery green with long, lacy black wings.
“Phen said they probably live underground near deep roots for years and only come up when they’re ready to reproduce.No need for brilliant colors in the dark.”He slid the sample vial into his sling bag.“Since they’re mostly a periodic nuisance and don’t destroy valuable crops, they haven’t been studied much.”His tone said he was still salty about the careless negligence of the rangers who came before him.
Not that she blamed him.A high number of systems failures she’d run across in her former career could have been prevented by regular maintenance.But as she knew all too well, pointing that out too often was a quick way to get reassigned to a new command.
She considered the curtain of roots that draped over the rocks, then thought back to her first days of exploration near their landing spot.“Could we be looking for a cave?”
“Maybe?To be honest, I’ve only ever paid attention to insects that harm or help plants.”He plucked the bug net away from his face to dislodge several black flies.“Or that want to eat me.”
“Or the aggressive, territorial flying kind.Poor Kyala got swarmed once when she dug into a fallen tree trunk.Took two days to get all the bee stingers out of her muzzle.”
As if excited at hearing her name, the gargoyle shook herself to get rid of excess dampness, spraying both her and Houyen with fine droplets of lake muck.
Sairy laughed.“Thank you, darling, but humans prefer clean water.”Her sneaky imagination produced an image of Houyen in a shower, naked.
She’d given up trying to suppress her increasingly inappropriate thoughts about him.Her long-neglected hormones didn’t care about the impossibility of any future between them.All they cared about was how well his pants defined his muscular thighs.She was totally out of practice trying to sense if he was interested in her.
Kyala leaned against Sairy’s thigh, reminding her to get her brain back in charge of things.“Do you need more samples?”
“No, I have plenty.”His gaze followed the bottom ledge, then flicked to the sky.“The weather-sat images show rain clouds are forming to the north and probably headed our way.I don’t want to be up this high in a storm.”
He took the lead and started toward the route they’d determined based on what her cameras could see.Sairy connected mentally with Kyala to ask her to help her companion pick the best footing, then followed behind them.
As she walked, she rubbed her jaw muscles, trying to get them to relax.The constant sense of unseen danger was making her crazy.Although she was risking giving the gods of chaos an irresistible challenge, she wished that the Brannezzo situation would hurry up and happen.
The hike to the ridge was work, but the plentiful thick roots offered decent support for the steepest parts.Stepping onto the ledge required pushing through the curtain, plunging them into deep shadows.
Houyen touched controls on his gauntlet to provide a light.
