As Andrea departed Lin kept an eye on the view from Andrea’s drone escorts, taking the time to appreciate the spectacularly dramatic views of the mist wreathed mountain valley flying past. Lin particularly enjoyed the sight of the pyramid as they flew past, somehow it managed to retain its looming air of menace even when viewed from above. Lin watched it, until it fell behind the steadily advancing drones and was enveloped by a thick bank of fog, disappearing from standard human sight in an eerie yet majestic display. Having taken time to properly appreciate this planet on an aesthetic level, Lin returned to her usual, more analytical, efforts at appreciating the wonders of the world.
An additional goad to Lin’s work was her recent realization of just how dangerous for Andrea the diseases and parasites of this world had the potential to be. Though she’d been honest with Andrea earlier, Lin was still more concerned than she’d let on and felt that the pursuit and study of new samples had taken on a fresh urgency. In addition to the usual tests and experimentation Lynn had now added on the stress testing of her reproduction of Andrea's immune system. Lin would be exposing it to various microorganisms cultured from collected samples and even applying macro scale parasites she came across to ensure that the usual anti-parasite systems were effective. Lin intended to supply Andrea’s defense systems with a comprehensive threat database in advance of those threats.
A key element of those defenses was Andrea's biosynthesis organ, which would be getting more of a workout than usual, since it was primarily responsible for producing the custom viruses targeted at foreign organisms. It was hard for bacteria, fungi, and animals like mosquitoes and leeches to cause much damage when Andrea's immune system rapidly produced tailored viruses that tended to prove lethal to virtually all such threats. With Lin providing the data, Andrea’s body was already beginning to produce and circulate new custom viruses ensuring that any threat Lin discovered in advance would soon find Andrea’s insides a lethal environment.
There were of course still dangers that weren’t susceptible to tailored viruses. Toxins, foreign viruses, and prion diseases were all threats requiring other countermeasures. Toxins that might find their way into Andrea’s bloodstream were largely unconcerning. Andrea's engineered liver combined with portions of her implants were capable of handling virtually any toxin that wasn't dissolving flesh on contact. This left Lin prioritizing her tests on any prions and viruses she found. Here, Lin’s efforts at advance detection were particularly critical. Having not evolved to fool even a traditional human's immune system, all the viruses they'd come across so far had been easily handled, however that was no reason to become complacent. Underestimating the adaptability and variety of viral threats was a mistake Lin was determined to avoid. Prions on this planet were much the same as the viruses, they hadn't evolved in the same environment as humans and were based on proteins found in local organisms, this meant there was a very low chance that they could interface with Andrea's biology. Low chances didn’t mean no chance, and the best defense against both viral and prion threats was discovering them before Andrea was exposed and entering them into the threat database. Andrea’s mouth and sinuses continuously sampled all incoming liquids and gasses, screening them against the threat database. Upon detecting a threat an automatic purge and lockdown would engage to keep it from entering the stomach or lungs. If a problem with airborne contaminants was discovered Andrea's lungs would be locked down from normal breathing and either an internal air supply would be tapped into or the mechanical filtration systems would kick in, venting breathable air into Andrea's respiratory system.
Lin knew her partner’s augmented body was incredibly resilient, but she was always concerned for anyone who chose to stay in a single body. They always struck Lin as so vulnerable. She had to constantly remind herself not to smother the embodied with concern for their safety, she’d alienated people she was close to in the past by being overprotective, and had learned her lesson. It was better to be supportive of how they chose to live, and do her best to keep them safe when she could.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
Lin respected Andrea’s dedication to exploration, and her courage in the face of danger. Lin’s respect was all the greater since she knew she’d struggle to act as decisively if she didn’t have her detached, distributed perspective. Such a perspective tended to give Lin distance from feelings of personal danger. Of course distributed human’s died all the time, it wasn’t as if they were truly immortal. But knowing she had a multitude of bodies hosting parts of her consciousness at any given time certainly took the edge off any feelings of vulnerability.
Lin had spent only a few minutes on her work when a priority flag popped up from one of the two additional high altitude drones that had been continuing to slowly spiral out mapping the region. By now their mapping sweeps had covered a roughly 20 kilometer diameter area centered on the base camp. This meant that most of the time one of the drones was now mapping the far side of one of the mountain ranges that formed the isolated valley. Outside the mountain range and protected valley they had found themselves in, at least to the southwest, was an open rolling landscape with prairie-like expanses broken by the occasional small stand of trees. Perhaps 60 kilometers from the mountain’s foothills the drones could make out a large river sweeping through a lush riparian zone with distinctive trees, and bushes forming a dense green border. Exploring all of that would come in due course, and Lin had been content to leave a close examination to a later time, but the images one of the high altitude drones was sending her now, changed Lin’s mind. The drone had just crested the mountains again as it continued its outward spiral, when it spotted a significant change by the river.
A sizable convoy of pack animals and a number of what looked like some sort of self propelled vehicles were disembarking from a large ship moored by the near bank of the river. A ship, which Lin noted showed no sign of sails or oars, and flying from its stern was a large flag that featured a pair of sleek winged creatures that looked like a cross between a wasp and a spider, these unsettling beasts were depicted in a rampant pose facing each other. Many humanoid beings that looked similar to Unla-Ela and their group were bustling throughout the convoy and the lead elements appeared to be heading towards the mountainous border of the valley.
Lin was understandably concerned about this large group heading their way and messaged Andrea who was still in mid flight, and seemed more excited than concerned. “Well this is certainly an interesting development. If they really are headed to this valley, we’ve still got at least a few days to figure out how to handle this new group, and I can probe Unla-Ela about them. That flag should be handy for identifying them. Hopefully they're as friendly as Unla-Ela’s group.”
Lin had her doubts, but decided not to voice her concerns yet. Until they gathered more information there was little they could do differently from what they had planned. “Go ahead and enjoy your morning flight through the fog, I’ll get back to work studying samples and redirect one of the high altitude drones to maintain observation of this new group.”
Of the three high altitude surveillance drones Andrea and Lin had deployed, one remained dedicated to overwatch of Unla-Ela’s camp and its environs, one would continue it’s spiral mapping pattern alone, and the third was now going to be remaining in position to peer over the mountains and observe the new group. Lin wanted to try to gather as much information as she could about how many beings were going to be in the group as well as what capabilities their tools displayed.
The self-propelled vehicles on both land and water, suggested at least one type of compact generator of mechanical work. So far no smoke seemed to be coming from any of the vehicles, though with the odd phenomena Lin had been observing so far, this meant far less than it would have before. They could have some exotic power source, they could be electrical, or they could be burning fuel of some sort and the exhaust was managed by some other exotic phenomena keeping it from being obvious.
Lin would wait for them to get closer before she attempted more detailed imaging and analysis. The fog and clouds around the valley helped keep the drone that much harder to spot, but they also obscured this new group from some of the drone’s sensors. That desire to remain hidden was also the reason that Lin was keeping her distance from the new group, the high altitude drone could be directly over the group within an hour but, despite its high altitude and the camouflage, it would be all too likely for someone to spot it. Particularly if these aliens had evolved with predators that attacked from above, they’d be more prone to instinctively observing the sky for threats. Wenou’s talk about the creatures called defilers made Lin suspect that flying threats were an instinctive concern for these beings. So for the time being Lin kept her eyes in the sky lurking in the mist, silently peering down on the unsuspecting beings below.