Up and down they went over rolling hills following the path. They passed a couple branches, but continued going roughly west so that the ‘sun’ was at their backs.
“Um, shouldn’t the light be different by now?” Dr. Zanna asked, feeling a little silly.
“What do you mean, what light?” Sykes asked, keeping his eyes on the path in front of them.
“The daylight.” Dr. Zanna said, “When we started there was that golden dawn glow to everything, but shouldn’t that have passed by now?”
“Oh!” Brennan exclaimed, “Shoot, I should have been checking.” She pressed her lips together in frustration, but also kept her head forward.
Sykes sighed, “Checking… what?”
“The angle of the sun.” Brennan said, frown evident in her voice.
“Its risen about 15° since we got here.” Sykes supplied. “But we didn’t get here at dawn, the sun, or this sun, was already above the trees.” Sykes then asked, like a teacher prompting a student, “Lt. Brennan, what does that tell us?”
“Ooh, a couple things, sir!” She said, brightening, and Dr. Zanna suddenly had a very clear mental image of a younger Lieutenant Brennan sitting front and center in a classroom. She’d probably done that in every class.
“First, it tells us that we’re looking at an approximately 30 hour day since we’ve been here 2 and a half hours. Second, it tells us that either this star is closer to a K type, redder, than our sun, or that the atmosphere is different enough that light refracts through it differently. Since we’re able to breathe though, and from the briefing, I’m leaning towards the first explanation.” She glanced towards Sykes and almost tripped.
“Interesting, anything we can do with that?” Johnston asked, sounding bored.
“If we’re here long enough, enjoy a fabulous sunset? Incrementally advance humanity’s understanding of the cosmos?” Brennan shot back.
They lapsed into silence after that. Dr. Zanna couldn’t speak for the others, but her legs were starting to ache and the golden glow now seemed foreign, alien even. She shook it off and focused on keeping her feet in a straight direction. The increased gravity wasn’t too noticeable, but she found that she did have to spend some attention on walking to keep from tripping as Brennan had almost done. The automatic muscle response was just a tiny bit off and could trip her up, literally, if she didn’t constantly make minute adjustments. On the one hand, it was annoying, on the other hand it was proof she was on another world and that was wonderful. Really, it could be a lot worse than this and it would still be wonderful.
Shortly afterwards Sykes motioned for the group to halt. They did so and Sykes put his hand to his ear and then pointed up the path. Dr. Zanna listened, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Over the sound of what could be crickets she thought she could hear something. She strained and stepped forward involuntarily. Was that singing? She thought so, but couldn’t be sure.
“Alright folks, limber up, because that sounds like my church choir and you all might look like sinners to them.” Sykes said, then put action to words, or at least stretching to words.
A soft tinkling sound, like small bells, emanated from Makari. “I apologize, but what does that mean?”
“It means that I don’t know how pleasant of a reception we’re going to get so best to catch our breath and be ready for anything.” Sykes explained, taking off his pack and doing a side bend. “Come on now, limber up. That’s an order.” He said, chidingly.
Johnston and Brennan took off their packs and Dr. Zanna did the same, feeling silly for a moment, but then appreciating the lack of weight on her shoulders. She rolled her neck from side to side and stifled a giggle. If you’d told her last week that she would today be on another world doing stretches with a group of strangers and a robot spider she would have said that was ridiculous. But it was happening, Makari was straightening its legs out one by one. Specialist Johnston, who she’d guess specialized in murder, was bending over, loosening his hamstrings. She settled for grinning to herself at the hilarity of it all.
Once they were all stretched out packs went back on and they started forward. The sound got clearer, it definitely sounded like singing now, and something else she wasn’t sure of. Sort of like long, high pitched hisses.
They crested the hill and a long shallow valley lay spread before them. Plant stalk things rose high into the air, maybe 20 or 30 feet tall, it was hard for Dr. Zanna to tell precisely. They looked kind of like dandelions, just on an entirely different scale with tall straight green stalks topped by puffs of silk and seeds. It looked as though spines or spikes grew out of the top as well, possibly to support what would be huge flowers? She thought she could see buildings in the distance as well and brought out her binoculars to check. She felt a flutter of excitement and actually went weak at the knees for a moment as she stared. Were those people ziplining and swinging around the puffs harvesting them? They were at the very least quadrupeds, but were covered nearly head to toe in black and gray cloth. Short cloth streamers trailed away from their bodies as they nimbly maneuvered around the plants as she realized the zip lines were what was making the hissing sounds.
Suddenly one fell from their perch and she winced at the motion and though she couldn’t hear it was pretty sure bones were broken. A few others rushed over and began giving medical aid. It was too fast to be certain, but she thought she’d seen a foot, a very human foot. What on Earth, or whatever this planet was called by its natives, was a human doing here? How would that have happened? Were humans brought here from Earth or vice versa? Was there a divine plan to the universe and she’d just been wrong about this whole atheism thing her entire adult life? Her mouth opened and shut a few times of its own accord and she reminded herself to breathe.
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Around her she could hear the others grappling with these or similar questions. ‘How’ and ‘what the…’ were the phrases repeated most often.
Sykes, looking the most serious that Dr. Zanna had seen him thus far, gestured the group out of sight of the village. It was unlikely that they would have been noticed, Dr. Zanna thought, but she appreciated the caution nonetheless.
“What does this mean?” Sykes asked Dr. Zanna.
She floundered out, “I… really don’t know? That something strange is going on? Or, not strange?” She shrugged and raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s really too soon to say.” She hesitated. “I guess I can say that it definitively means that there are things going on in the universe at large that we don’t know.” She bit her lip. “But we kind of already knew that… kind of?”
He rubbed his hand over his hair, “Ok, I guess it was kind of a silly question to expect you to have an answer to.” He turned to Makari, “Mac, what does this mean?”
“Oh! Mac, I am Mac. This means they are base stock, much like yourselves.” It said, giving the impression of blinking, but all over it’s carapace and many limbs.
“Base stock?” Sykes asked, incredulous. “Go on.” He said, voice going low.
“Ah, well, unfortunately, the rest of that file and related files are corrupted.” Makari answered cheerfully.
“Unfortunately indeed.” Sykes said, sounding skeptical. Dr. Zanna noticed Specialist Johnston’s hand had started resting on his rifle, probably a nervous habit, and a dangerous one.
Sykes rubbed his hand over his hair again, also apparently a nervous habit, or at least a thinking one.
“Ok, I saw a watchtower with a couple guards. It didn’t look like that had anything to compete with our weaponry, but this remains an unknown situation. We will approach slowly with our hands up to show our good intentions. Mac, Zanna, you’ll be on translation. Just everybody play it cool and we should have a good first contact.” Sykes looked around at each and evidently saw hesitation on Dr. Zanna’s face, because he followed up with, “Dr. Zanna, I know you won’t be able to instantly translate or anything, but just do your best. Ready?” They nodded, although Dr. Zanna felt her stomach clench in a combination of nerves and excitement. Brennan just seemed eager and Johnston looked calm, but that could just be his normal approach to most situations. Makari, she wasn’t able to tell, but took note of it’s expressions, such as they were so she could start developing a profile.
They walked forward abreast and Sykes indicated they should leave some space between, presumably making them harder to hit if fired upon. As they got closer Dr. Zanna started noticing other details of the village.
The buildings were low and rounded and lacked the central ventilation opening that she would expect, no apertures for smoke to exit. Perhaps they were on the sides and closed during the day? It was possible she granted, but unlikely, as most early peoples she had studied smoked or otherwise cooked food all day. Also, the buildings, all ten or so, were surprisingly ugly. Ugly was certainly never a word she would use in an academic paper, but within the confines of her own mind she allowed herself aesthetic opinions. And these buildings were ugly. While rounded they also weren’t fully round, more like there was a round central chamber to each with one to four bulbous protrusions extending outward. They weren’t symmetrical and they were mostly, but not uniformly, a grey-green to brown. Tanned animal hides perhaps? They hadn’t seen any animals large enough, but they’d hardly done an extensive survey either.
Nearly every culture she had ever encountered or heard of decorated or otherwise personalized their dwellings, but she couldn’t see any such ornamentation here. Maybe they weren’t human after all? Or some other effect or entity had kept them from doing so? Now that she was looking for it, she did see some low structures around the edges of the village, they couldn’t be taller than waist height, maybe knee height even made of piles of stones and holding something in the center. She was still too far away to make any guesses about that something might be, however.
The ‘watchtower’ Sykes had noted was barely a tower, more a slightly taller rounded building that had someone standing on it, although Dr. Zanna couldn’t be sure they were guarding either. They looked, given the lack of visible features gender was impossible to determine, more relaxed than she was used to seeing guards. But then, she also usually encountered guards when they were definitely near secrets worth protecting so this might be more like the custom of having sheep, or other domesticated animals, herded by children who could also warn a village of approaching danger. Aside from the watcher, and those working the field, the area was empty, but that was not terribly surprising as harvests frequently required the attention of all able bodied persons.
Around the field of giant dandelion-esque plants were conical towers of a sort that she saw people scrambling up and down as some part of the ongoing harvest process. Given the rest of the village she was surprised and impressed at the tensile strength of the lines the harvesters were travelling down. Perhaps the plant fibers were stronger than the dandelion silk they resembled. Pure speculation of course, but apparently speculating was something she would need to adjust to, and soon.
By this time they had been seen and she could hear shouts. Shouts that sounded like they were broken into words, thankfully. She smiled, but kept her teeth hidden and her palms up and outraised, trying to appear as peaceful as possible.
“Smile if you want, but don’t show teeth.” She called out to the others, careful to keep her teeth covered even while she spoke, just in case. “On Earth smiles are pretty universal, but showing your teeth could mean a threat or a sexual invitation.” She kept her eyes forward, but heard acknowledgment grunts from the others.
A group of three people approached them, and everyone else stopped working and stared. Maybe 40 people were visible in all and most that had been harvesting were now making their way down. A few that were less observant were pausing and looking around for the source of the commotion. The three that approached ran in a sort of crouch, shoulders forward and hunched. Now that they were getting closer and she was able to see more details beyond the wrapped clothing and trailing strips of fabric she noticed their proportions were a little odd. Their arms and legs appeared more slender, and their bellies more rounded than a typical, non-starving adult. That could be due to any number of factors, such as diet, clothing details she couldn’t see, or the hallmark of a common childhood illness. Or, by some strange freak coincidence and discounting Makari’s ‘base stock’ comment they might not be human after all. In flashes of eyes between bounds that seemed unlikely, but then who knew what was likely anyway?
They pulled to a stop, all at once, in a jarring display of synchronicity. The one in the middle stepped forward and then all three crouched down so that they were on eye level with Makari. The humans were ignored by the two on the right, the one on the left started rapidly scanning them all up and down, head bobbing with the motion. And from this close, it was definitely a head, and all details appeared human from the eyes, the tan skin, the way their breath puffed out their face coverings. It was still possible they weren’t human on the inside of course, or that there were small differences indiscernible through clothing, but if she had to guess, she’d guess they were human.
The one in the center addressed some quick words and gestures with Makari, but it was too fast and too soft for her to make out details so she focused on the hands. She, or he, or other, moved their hands rapidly, keeping the thumb out and grouping the index and middle fingers, and the ring and pinky fingers.
“Ma-ac? Care to translate or explain why they’re addressing you and not us?” Sykes asked, still smiling, Dr. Zanna saw at a glance, teeth hidden.
“Ah, yes, they are wondering why you didn’t offer your wrists.” Makari said, now in some hybrid British-Indian accent that set Dr. Zanna on edge.
“Offer our wrists?” Sykes asked, with admirable patience.
“Yes, so they might know you, smell you.” Makari said, as though it was the most reasonable of actions.
Sykes looked to Dr. Zanna, who shrugged. “Different people, different customs?”