64th Day, Year 135 of Helan Phorro Xamium

  Guardian Horskul Aatel had one of those things that helped relieve some boredom; the one where you hold it in your hand and spin the bottom wheel with your thumb to show a hologram and change its colours at random. After Champion Zalhang convinced her to part with it, we had the item tossed out the outer hatch to be a bait object. This time I convinced Tonglok Phorro to also try and coax one of the creatures over to give the orange berry back and see what ensues.

  This time fourteen came to the site. Seven of the spotted ones I decided to call ‘protectors’, and seven of the greenish-yellow ones I decided to call ‘examiners’. They stayed around the bait object until Tonglok Phorro started to lightly tap the ground, gaining their attention. He held up the berry and tapped the ground again. One of the examiners cautiously approached with two of the protectors in tow. Tonglok Phorro gave the examiner the dissected berry, which it then stupidly looked at while its protectors stood by intensively. Despite the present risks, he had the discretion to then slowly reach out to touch the examiner, causing the protectors to react aggressively. The two jumped in between with their weapons aimed, making a lot of noise as they quickly ushered the examiner and the others near the bait object away. The nearby machines on the edges of the landing site, which I have come to call ‘crawlers’, all turned and aimed at Tonglok Phorro, who thereupon closed the outer hatch.

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  A few of my hypotheses have been proven: These creatures did not like to be touched, were easily provoked, were in control of the crawlers surrounding us, and that said crawlers were a sort of weapon. The creatures did return after the day’s first sunset to take the bait object, showing they still have some sort of interest in what we may have to offer.

  After the second sunrise, an evaluation was made to go outside and mark our boundaries. Moloj Phorro wanted a break from doing repairs, so he and Tonglok Phorro were sent out for the assignment. Both cautiously walked up as close as possible to locations where the crawlers are posted until a threatening act was performed to warn us. Then, Tonglok Phorro and Moloj Phorro planted a mark before moving to their left or right along the danger zone, continuing to plant more marks along the path taken. The entire time crawlers and protectors followed them on their own side of the boundary.

  We fully recorded our allowed area of movement: ten stridesI from the outer hatch to the smaller sloped hill, eighteen strides from the acceleration rocket engines to the edges of a nearby body of water, nine strides from the navigational viewport to the other side of the line of widespread, clustered, burned vegetation and thirteen strides from the central viewport to the larger steep hill. To the furthest points allowed in addition to our ship, we had an estimated safe area of about twelve thousand forty strides.

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I Stride: A unit of measurement the Minare uses for estimating distance, by pacing their walk in an average (for their race) gait.