The first thing Kyle felt after stepping onto the teleportation platform was the cold. He only brought the all-purpose clothing with him, and instantly wished he’d included the insulated set. He looked at his surroundings, taking in the alien sights. The whole area was dim, reminding him of the time right after the sun sank below the horizon on Earth. He could make out stubby trees three to four meters high and nearly as wide around, with branches lined with lichens rather than leaves.
Before he could take in much more, a screen popped up on his nav bracelet.
Participant Mayhew,
Welcome to the first phase of your Practicum. You are on a world that is not affiliated with the Collective. There are sapients on the planet who have established a primitive civilization, despite the harsh climate. Your objective is to survive for one cycle on this world.
Be warned – this is not simulated. The dangers are real and present, and your actions will have consequences.
Should you choose to forfeit the Practicum, you may reply to this message. A special tether is connected to the nav bracelet, and will return you to the Collective Institute of Independent Licensure from which you departed. This will require you to remain still for a period of time, and is ill-advised during a combat scenario.
We will notify you when the cycle has been completed, and prepare you for departure.
Kyle dismissed the prompt, and considered the implications. He was more than happy with a survival challenge, as it was in perfect alignment with his path. On the other side, he wanted to consider what else the challenge might entail. While it was a survival challenge at face value, Kyle suspected that they were also looking to see how candidates would handle working with groups outside the Collective. After all, nobody wanted to hire independents who were ticking diplomatic time bombs.
Likely, the expectation was for the candidate to make their way to the civilization, make contact, and then effectively demonstrate contact protocols. For most people, it would be a good test of how a person performed under stressful circumstances. Kyle didn’t expect he would fall into that category. There was another, unwritten law with which he’d grown well-acquainted. Power trumps all. Before Kyle even considered trying to find a settlement, he was going to see if this world was truly as harsh as it was cracked up to be.
He heard a soft snap behind him as C.H.A.D.D. began to survey the area. Kyle couldn’t help but smile at the drone’s initiative. “You’re one step ahead of me today, C.H.A.D.D. Thank you.”
[TWO STEPS, DR. MAYHEW. I’VE ALSO RUN A SCAN ON ONE OF THE TREES NEARBY, AND THEY’RE QUITE INTERESTING.]
A projection popped up in front of Kyle’s vision, showing a cross-section of the strange trees. Behind the outer layer of bark was what appeared to be a fluid-filled membrane, all insulating the central core of the tree. Kyle walked over to a nearby tree and rested his hand on the trunk, surprised to feel a little give to the bark. What caught his attention more, however, was that the tree was warm to the touch.
“You weren’t kidding, C.H.A.D.D. Any idea what function this adaptation serves?”
[NONE AT ALL, DR. MAYHEW.]
Where to start, Kyle thought, taking a quick inventory of his situation. He had with him some rations and his canteen, so he would be okay on the food and water front for a while. Even though the temperature was uncomfortably cold, Kyle didn’t feel he was in any immediate danger from it. He looked at the map C.H.A.D.D. provided, and didn’t see much of interest; just rolling hills, trees, and more swampy ground. Might as well get a better lay of the land.
With that thought, Kyle began his slow journey through the swamplands. He could have activated IGNITION and covered more ground, but he decided against it. There was always a risk that there could be wild creatures around, and he wanted to conserve energy where he could. In its current state, the skill was better used as a trump card than a basis mode of transportation.
He did, however, activate IDENTIFY on every new plant he encountered. While the strange trees were far and away the most common, Kyle did spot a number of thick clusters of vines with gourd-like fruits from time to time. From what he could tell, the fruit was edible, though it had properties that reminded Kyle of the neurotoxins he’d encountered back on Earth. They were far weaker than what he’d encountered before, and he absently grabbed a few of the gourds as he walked, excited to see how they tasted.
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It was at that moment he realized that something had changed. When his palm touched the thick rind of the gourd, he realized it was cool to the touch. Without noticing, the last several hours had warmed up considerably, with the cold no longer noticeable. At first, he attributed it to his body adapting, but feeling the cool skin of the gourd made him second-guess that assumption. “C.H.A.D.D., can you give me a cross section of the gourds as well?”
The drone obliged, and Kyle saw a similar membrane in the vines and fruits that he had in the trees. This is a form of temperature regulation, Kyle realized. Now that he was paying attention, he noticed the gradual temperature continuing to rise. Soon, light began to crest over the horizon, bringing with it incredible heat. If Kyle hadn’t been on the planet to experience the chilling cold before, he never would have believed it was the same place.
The dark stones on the ground absorbed the heat, and soon the swampy ground felt like a dry-baked clay. That’s not all that there is, Kyle thought. The intense heat was worse to Kyle than the cold, though it was still far from unbearable. C.H.A.D.D. picked up the first signs of animal life, and Kyle investigated through the haze of the mid-day heat.
It was a small, lizard-like creature the size of a chicken. It had a snout that reminded Kyle of a woodpecker, and it ran towards the gourds littering the ground, poking holes in them to get to the flesh of the fruit underneath. It seemed not to care about Kyle’s presence, and he decided to watch the creature, looking for hints as to how it handled the wild changes in the environment. He spotted several others foraging in the same manner as the first, and watched, as one, they lifted their heads.
All of them immediately began to run in the same direction, and Kyle thought it was something he’d done at first, before he felt the subtle shift in the atmospheric mana, courtesy of Auric Perception. He followed the scurrying creatures, seeing them disappear into a hole in the ground near one of the stubby trees. The heat began to wane, and Kyle looked up to see a crackling storm cloud coming over the horizon.
He barely had time to react before the cloud swept across the area, pounding the area with a bombardment of golf ball-sized hail. The fierce winds ripped through the strange forest, sending the chunks of ice flying nearly sideways. Kyle stood in the shelter of one of the trees, watching with interest as the hailstones bounced against the bark while taking a deep drink from his canteen. Kyle realized with fascination that the membrane beneath the bark also acted as a shock absorber, limiting damage to the heart of the tree beneath.
Just over an hour later, the storm had passed. The bombardment cooled the area significantly, the moisture already being drawn in by the plant life. The sun had set over the horizon, and soon the familiar chill began to set in. Kyle had some ideas about nextsteps, and he took a bite of some dried meat as he decided to ask his companion about their situation. “What do you make of it, C.H.A.D.D.?”
[LIFE FORMS ON THIS PLANET ALL SEEM TO HAVE ADAPTED TO THE RATHER EXTREME ENVIRONMENT. I ADMIT, I AM CURIOUS WHAT TYPES OF ADAPTATIONS THE NATIVE SAPIENTS HAVE IN ORDER TO SURVIVE.]
Kyle nodded at the beginning of the drone’s assessment, having come to the same conclusions himself. There were likely variances, but it felt like they’d experienced something close to one day/night cycle on this planet. The reaction of the chicken/lizard creatures was too instinctive for that storm to have been unusual. Kyle felt the cold begin to creep in, enhanced by the damp clothes he now wore. Despite himself, he smiled. This is exactly the kind of challenge we were looking for.
Kyle rested his palm against the trunk of the tree, feeling the warmth on the palm of his hand. “The membrane is for insulation.”
[I DREW THE SAME CONCLUSION, DR. MAYHEW.]
Kyle smiled as tendrils of mana extended towards the tree. “Then it sounds like we have a great place to start.”
~~~
A door at the Collective Guild Interoffice opened, and a skrell walked in. She, like all of her species, was entirely bald, and her grey scalp was beaded with sweat as she made her way through the various checkpoints. Suerrillax had been sent on an important mission – picking up the lunch delivery. This was her first year working for the Guilds, and this was the first opportunity she had to supervise the Practicum. At least, when she wasn’t being sent off to run errands.
She finally made it to the primary office, where her colleagues sat taking notes, a hundred different screens following the different applicants. After handing each meal to its designated recipient, she collapsed into the chair next to the only other skrell in the room, and her official mentor. “How are they doing? What did I miss?”
The excitement in Suerrillax’s voice was clear, and Rupiniax gave her a dry look as he began to tear into his lunch. Between bites, he responded. “It’s fine. Forty-five applicants have already made it to the nearest settlement. We expect that number to increase to at least seventy within the next twenty or so hours.”
Suerrillax nodded as she entered some notes into her database. The first phase of the Practicum differed from season to season, but the theme was similar. Applicants would have to find ways to ingratiate themselves with the local populations for shelter and food, without breaking Collective protocols for contact. Each planet they were sent to had graded difficulty, but regardless of the ranking, the biggest challenge for the applicants was typically finding their way to the settlements. That forty-five had already made it was encouraging, and spoke highly of this batch.
At least, it spoke highly of most of them. She looked up, and couldn’t help but frown as one of the nearest screens showed an applicant examining the trees on the planet he’d been sent to. His planet’s difficulty was already higher than average, and he was wasting time taking notes about tree bark instead of finding shelter. Suerrillax snorted as she opened her own lunch and began to eat. It was pretty clear to her who the first drop out was going to be.