Vicious winds whipped the dusty landscape into a frenzy. Rocks howled and the sparse grasses whistled, voicing their distress, but to no avail. It was one of the more bitter features of Delannut, a planet known for its inhospitable disposition.

Not that it mattered much; Calenium formed en masse in the hollows and flats of the land, which meant that it would be settled regardless of the weather. The precious mineral was worth a few months of discomfort to the worker that collected it- it was worth even more to the multitude of private companies that vied for a monopoly on the planet and the rights to brute mining operations. So far, though, none had succeeded, and the planet remained in the horrifying limbo that was the public domain, free for every settler with the capital and guts to make landfall.

They didn’t often last long.

Dry, unforgiving, and a dismal shade of brown, Delannut was like a blot on the otherwise fair reputation of livable planets- it passed the settling standards, but just barely. The listing in the registry for planets available to be settled in was as follows.

‘Delannut: High-effort, labor intensive, mortal risk. Not recommended.’

Horizontal hail the size of teeth pelted everything from the ground to a height of ten meters. Gravity fluctuated constantly due to the unrest in the planet’s core and warping magnetic fields. Wind whisked away moisture to be deposited in sinkholes that filled in with muck and stone, only to burst years later from gas buildup. There were no clouds. There was no thriving ecosystem.

There was only the red giant floating angrily in the sky, set on burning the planet to a crisp; and it would one day succeed.

Deep in the flats walked a figure, swathed in black and khaki, wrapped from head to foot. The figure was humanoid and walked with a strange gait that could come from anything from a botched surgery to a rock in its shoe. It took the pelting hail in stride, making no sound but the constant trudge of boot on coarse sand.

Above the flats sat a small dwelling- or to be more precise, the entry to a dwelling. It was a wide and thick platform of crete set into the rock some twenty meters long and shaped like a landing pad. Markings lay on it for measurements in twisting letters, and the very center of it bore the wear of movement.

Inside, Enneth studied the figure from the beaten lenses of weather cameras set about the perimeter of her home. She was a Vennedie, a tall and thin-limbed being from one of the many gas clusters that scattered the galaxy. Her birth, as with most Vennedie, had been a sad affair- sad in that another number would be added to the list of the hungry of their kind.

Vennedie, however, would not settle in and be sad with the rest of them. Her optimism had led her to take chances where they around her did not, and after a few years of hunger and calculated risk, Enneth had obtained a ship and settler’s permit.

She didn’t want to be rich. She just didn’t want to be hungry.

The figure came closer, and she studied it carefully. It was a human, of that she was sure- none of the other settlers were dumb or desperate enough to come out during a squall like this after the solar flare that had wiped out all the radio communications. A single misstep would be quickly followed by death of exposure or dehydration, whichever came first.

Most weren’t able to get back up after falling on this planet. Humans, though, always seemed to stand back up.

The figure came to the center of her pad, and Enneth pulled the handle to lower it. Whether they were friendly or not would be determined, but there was a single rule of hospitality on this planet- talk inside.

Cleaning operations buzzed and cleared her entryway and the figure stepped inside. Enneth pulled away from her command module and met it within the main quarters, which were small and sparse indeed.

Enneth stood opposite the bulky figure. She only had two pairs of clothing, what she now wore and her suit for collecting Calenium. Neither were in good shape.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Her deep blue limbs had horizontal yellow stripes on the upper portions, and the thinness of her body must have been apparent. Vennedie were already thin to begin with, but their bodies reacted similarly to humans in the absence of nutrition. Her ribs were readily apparent, even through her clothes.

The human spoke, muffled by the multiple layers of clothing that wrapped about it. “Is your radio down?”

She paused. Had the human not been aware of the flare? “Yes, it’s down. The flare fried my safestop, and I ran out of extras two weeks ago.”

“Do you need supplies?”

“...Yes.”

“What kind?”

Enneth didn’t hesitate. Withholding information in this sort of situation would be stupid.

“Food. I’ve been subsiding on quarter rations for two weeks now. I only have a few days left.”

The human reached into the depths of its garments and pulled out a lump of dehydrated nutrients the size of a brick and handed it to her. Enneth took it- it was heavy. Absurdly heavy. How had the human carried this so far?

“That should keep you for another week until I get back. How’s your water supply?”

“It’s holding.”

“Good. Here.” The figure pulled something else from the depths of its coat and held it out to her- it sat, shining with the light of deliverance, in the human’s ungloved hand. She pulled the spherical device with its two grounding points from the human’s palm while studying its fingers, trying to discern if it was male or female. She couldn’t tell- didn’t know enough about their physiology. Did both males and females have nails? Or were they sexually dimorphic?

“Thank you.”

“Mmm. Anything else?”

“No, I don’t think so-”

The human turned around and trudged back out into the entryway. Enneth set down the brick of nutrients and stumbled past her single couch to human.

“Wait-”

“What? The next unit is twenty miles away. I need to get moving.”

“How did you keep your safestops from frying? Why are you out here? You could get hurt.”

“Faraday cage, you should have one too. Send me back up, please. I’ll be back in a week with more food.”

She held the entry portal open, insistent. “You could get hurt. One slip-”

“I’m aware. Send me up.”

“Why are you doing this?”

The figure paused, then started fitting its gloves back on.

“My neighbor died. Water pump busted, radio out, no backups and too scared to leave without radio. Found him a week after the fact, all shriveled up beside the door.” The human’s voice lowered. “A mile away. One damned mile. I could have checked in eight different times, but I didn’t.”

There was a moment of silence.

Enneth stepped back from the entryway. “Has… Anyone else..?”

“No. You were the closest to running out of food, but not by much. I’ll be back.”

Enneth allowed the door to close and pushed the handle to raise the platform. Howling winds assaulted the platform anew, but the figure stood still like one of the scarred rock formations until the it came level with the rest of the pad.

Then the human started walking, away from where it had come, down onto the flats.

Enneth watched the figure go; she saw the wind formation form, but had no way to warn the human. She cursed at herself for not immediately replacing the safestop as a dust devil, filled with rocks the size of fists, barreled over the human and knocked it to the ground. She watched, helpless, as the form was pelted with stones until the dust devil whirled onward and dissipated.

There was nothing but the constant scrabble of scree and gravel for a few minutes as Delannut carried on its harsh selection. Enneth sat, eyes glued to the low-quality screens, unable to accept that the dead figure on the ground was the human that had just saved her.

It was good that she hadn’t accepted it, because it wasn’t true.

First were the arms, then the legs, raising the human to four points above the ground. The wind howled with rage and flung dirt and stone and sand, but still the human moved.

Then one of the legs came up- the right one- and with a heave the human stood, brushed itself off, placed its hands in its pockets and continued the dreary trudge in the wasteland spotted by riches.

Enneth left the screen when she could no longer make out the human’s form. She allowed herself to eat her first full meal in weeks, then carefully replaced the safestop, ran diagnostics, and activated her radio.

As in the aftermath of most solar flares, the local community was in disarray- but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been on previous occasions. Enneth signed in and marked herself safe. Their local community wasn’t massive- maybe some seventy or so units- but more than half of them were back online. The recovery rate was never that high, or so quick. She checked the local map- there, in a spiralling connect-the-dots pattern, were the settlers marked safe and back online by date and time. Some had been fine, but many were reporting their recovery with notes regarding a human visitor.

Enneth added to the notes, then sat back in her chair. She needed to find out what a Faraday cage was- and, if possible, get the personal line of the human so she could thank it properly.

Outside, the great red sun beat down with a fury and the sparse, tough shrubs writhed in protest. Anything that grew bent in the direction of the wind, if it was constant- if it wasn’t, the plants warped and twisted, but still made their way upwards.

The air was thick with dust, the ground chaotic in swirls and undulating patterns from movement. Spherical stones reaching up to the knee ground their way slowly across the landscape, this way and that, meandering on their path towards erosion.

And, trudging stoically through the dismal brown of the Calenium flats, was the tightly-wrapped black and khaki figure of a human.