Very as it turned out.

The fish, having evolved on S-41234 (DW-4), where death lurked around every corner, were skittish, and Madeline could not get within twenty metres of them, let alone spearing distance.

Which, in a way, was a good thing, as her spear was, in a word, terrible and probably would not have worked anyway.

“We’re gonna have to rethink this,” said a large millipede, horse alien, whose name she could not pronounce; even the shortened, multilingual one most aliens called them was beyond Madeline’s speech.

The herbivorous aliens, for their part, just stood in amazement as these supposed natural-born killers floundered around; some were even in ethical debates over where they could kill anything at all.

“What in the twenty spheres are you all talking about? You’re predators,” one scally amphibian asked, her disbelief easily crossing species barriers.

“I’ve never killed anything in my life; I don’t even swat the insects that invade my home”, the millipede horse explained.

No herbivore responded, the cognitive dissonance having left them all dumbfounded.

“My race stopped killing animals for food when cloned meat became reliable; heck, the humans were cutting down on meat consumption even before that”, the unpronounceable alien explained like they were talking to a larva.

Madeline was a little surprised at this. Cross-species cultural knowledge was usually poor, outside of historians and xenopologists. Then again, everyone has their hobbies, and learning about other societies was a damn good one in Madeline’s book.

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re trying to figure this out”, the millipede stated and turned their back on the group.

“You’re feisty,” said Madeline with a smile.

“I’m hungry; I get irritable when I’m hungry”, they replied.

“We all do”, stated Madeline.

After a few minutes of discussion, they were getting nowhere until Madeline had an idea.

“Look, there is no way any of us are learning to fish before we starve, right” stated Madeline.

“Right”, the other carnivores agreed, though they were not thrilled about the prospect.

“So we need to rethink the menu; we need to focus on much slower foodstuffs”, explained Madeline.

“You mean gastropods, molluscs and the like,” the horse millipede said.

Madeline nodded.

“I don’t know what that gesture means”, they stated.

“Sorry, nodding the head means yes”, clarified Madeline.

“Wait”, a glossy, wingless bat-like survivor said. “Filter feeders can be dangerous on my planet, and I live on a Class 5 (H); what will this world be like?”

“Red tide poisoning”, Madeline mumbled knowingly. “Sadly, we have little choice. This is survival. Besides, this is a freshwater swamp with no industry; the risks are minimal,” she added.

“How do we cook them anyway?” asked the millipede horse.

Madeline remembered her scouting days; they had done many coastal and marshland survival courses. Though cooking courses would be better, considering they did not actually catch the food themselves.

“I think we either boil them alive or roast them on a hot stone”, answered Madeline.

The protest was immediate and vigorous. Madeline utterly agreed; cooking something alive was just as barbaric as eating it alive.

“We have no fecking choice,” stated Madeline forcefully, rubbing her eyes.

Everyone was startled by this tone. Even the herbivores who were making it their mission to ignore as much of the conversation as possible looked on with concern.

“Are you ok?” the elderly woman, who had helped the others with their swim to shore, asked.

Her name was Jodhr, which roughly translated to; one who glides through the meadows. Her culture used actual words for names rather than abstract ones like most humans.

She was roughly the size and dimensions of a rhino, though she had no horn on her nose but rather a tiny bump on the top of her skull. She had six weight-bearing legs and two additional limbs positioned at the base of her neck. They were thin, and equipped with ten cartilaginous fingers, used to manipulate objects.

“Just a little stressed,” replied Madeline regaining her composure. “Now everyone who eats meat, start scouring the water’s edge of molluscs, crustaceans and the like…” she added before trailing off, her eyes fixed squarely on the water.

Stolen story; please report.

“Is something the matter?” asked the horse millipede.

“There, on the water,” said Madeline, pointing at what looked like a log slowly drifting towards them.

Everyone else struggled immensely, trying their best to focus on whatever Madeline was pointing at.

At most, the eagle-eyed amongst them could make a darker blob on the water, but nothing definitive.

“I see something,” Jodhr said, squinting, “though my eyes are not what they once were.”

“I can’t see anything at all,” another said, trying desperately to see what was so damn engrossing.

Suddenly struck with an idea, Madeline picked up one of the branches that had been used as a flotation device and began to beat the water rhythmically.

“What are you doing?” someone asked; though Madeline was unsure who, her attention was almost entirely on the log.

“Testing”, she replied after a few moments.

“Testing what?” asked the millipede horse.

“Quiet!” ordered Madeline as she kept slapping the water.

Everyone fell deathly silent, and Madeline kept up her repetitive task as the lichen-encrusted log drew ever closer.

Raising her stick as high as she could, Madeline brought the branch down as hard as she could.

Then dozens of razor-sharp teeth exploded from the water.

Madeline leapt back as far as her legs and the local gravity would allow, keeping her stick between herself and whatever had decided to make a meal out of her.

Cries of terror erupted from everyone present, although they were more like alarm calls to Madeline's ears.

Madeline’s would-be ambusher hauled its way onto land after her, using six muscular and dexterous fins.

It was massive, at least nine metres from nose to tail; its bones were thick and heavyset, and its face was like a monkfish, jaw facing upwards, with two bulging eyes positioned on the top of its skull.

Like most river-dwelling life, its body was shallow and wide with a long, powerful tail and a delicate fluke, similar to a newt. Its skin was moist but tough, with many filaments and fleshy growths, allowing it to blend into its surroundings.

Like a killer whale beaching for a seal, the massive fish continued to follow Madeline up the shore. Until only the very tip of its tail remained. Sensing that it was too far to continue the chase, it took one last bite at Madeline, grabbing hold of the branch and shaking violently, trying to kill her in the process.

Despite its enormous size, Madeline found it surprisingly easy to hold on. However, it was all relative; if Madeline lost her balance, or the fish thing got some decent leverage, it would easily fling her into the water. The ambusher finally gave up and dragged itself back into the water.

Never once taking her eyes off the predator, she panted heavily as the adrenaline wore off.

Madeline knew what it was, even if she was unaware of the exact species. It was a krousticl, a very successful family of animals, still on the rise; scientific surveys had discovered over fifty genera and counting. They lived everywhere, from the coast to small river estuaries; some were even well established on land, only returning to the water to breed.

“How the hell could you see that?” someone asked.

“With difficulty”, responded Madeline.

“Are you gonna kill that thing?” asked another.

“How?” Madeline asked incredulously. “It’s nearly half a ton of solid bone and muscle, and all I have is this cheap knife”, she added, holding up the mediocre survival tool from her lifepod.

“You’re a Deathworlder”, a small shrew-like alien mumbled, unwilling to meet Madeline’s gaze.

Madeline had to blink. Did these people really believe she was invincible, that she could take a tank shell to the face or something?

Rather than bring this up, Madeline merely pointed out, “It is too much hassle for too little reward.”

The krousticl had taken to casually swimming back and forth along the water’s edge, keeping an eye on all assembled. Unfortunately, its presence changed very little; they still needed animal protein.

Keeping constant watch, Madeline carefully searched the water for anything edible. However, she was doing it alone, being the only one with the courage or perhaps the stupidity to enter the water.

More than once, she was forced to drop everything and make a mad dash for the shore as the krousticl tried its luck again. Luckily the endurance and keen eyesight evolution had gifted her was doing its trick, and it never got within twenty meters of her.

After an hour, Madeline had collected a small assortment of bivalves and what looked like limpets, if limpets had a rather decorative rainbow pattern on their shells. Maybe they did; Madeline had no idea.

“What next?” a survivor asked.

“Next, we poke them with the scanner, make certain that they are edible”, the horse millipede explained.

Many winced at the idea, and Madeline steeled herself to do the heavy lifting again. The horse millipede, however, stepped up to the plate and did it for her. It would seem someone felt guilty about letting Madeline do all the work, or maybe they felt pathetic; the xeno’s face was unreadable.

After a few minutes, it was discovered that the limpet analogues were edible by all carnivores present. The millipede horse could eat a small species of snail-like animal in addition to the limpets. Madeline could eat them all; no real surprises there.

Taking a few flat stones Madeline had collected, she threw them into the fire, and they quickly began to heat.

“Ok, anyone who does not consume meat for a living will probably want to examine those trees for a few minutes,” Madeline pointed at a nearby copse.

Dutifully the vegetarians left for some botanical research while Madeline prepared the meal. With nothing left to do, she dampened the stone and placed the shellfish upon it.

Nothing happened for the first five seconds; the animals retreated into their shells and went still, and everyone assumed that it must have been a quick death then.

That was until the shell began to whistle; Madeline recognised it as the hiss that lobsters gave off when they were boiled.

The carnivores looked horrified, covering their ears and begging them to stop.

“It’s just air escaping”, Madeline stated forcefully; she had no idea if it was true, but by God, did she hope it was.

Madeline relaxed again as the whistling died away; she was getting sick of this survival thing. She finally understood why her ancestors had turned to farming, it may not have been easy, but at least you did not have to worry about where your next meal was coming from.

Madeline plucked one of the shellfish that only she could eat from the hot stone using her knife. The shell fell away, and the flesh was a pleasant pale colour.

Seeing as Madeline was the heroic pathfinder, she took the first bite, trying her hardest to forget that it was once a living thing. The effect on Madeline was immediate and positive, it was remarkably bland, but compared to what she had eaten for the past two days, it was like a gourmet meal.

“Oh shit, I’ve barely been here for two days,” thought Madeline, chewing her food, her expression changing to one of cosmic contemplation.

“I do hope rescue comes soon”, she mumbled to herself, swallowing her meal.