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The first sensation that I ever felt on the surface of Lenaeus IVb was a fuckload of pink foam.
It was weaved in between every appendage of my body, bubbling and quietly hissing in my ear. Lukewarm and dense, it kept me suspended a few centimeters above my chair, which was an indication that it had successfully saved my life. My stupid seatbelt had betrayingly snapped in half at the moment of impact, and were it not for the foam, I would have flown forward and destroyed my own head on the navmon. But instead, it had loyally deployed and stopped me right where I hovered, with my arms awkwardly bent out in front of my face and with my legs uncomfortably pressed together.
Just as rapidly as the foam appeared, it started to compress away. Steam rose all around me and the material grew warmer, skirting the boundary of 'burning' by the time it was at my feet. But I was too busy focusing on the second sensation I would ever perceive on the planet - the cold, uninviting metal of the pod's walls and floor.
It was a contrast so disgustingly unwelcome that I instantly collapsed back into my chair. This brief respite of hopelessness was brought to an end seconds later as the incessant - but admittedly attention-grabbing - beeping of the computer kicked into full gear. I was now to undergo the emergency landing protocol, and I would have to be efficient and receptive about it, or else I would have a very difficult time staying alive in the coming hours and days.
I reached forward and swiped the residual pinkness - now more of a goo than a foam - off the navmon. At the moment, all it displayed was my own name and a little confirmation prompt at the bottom. This step of the emergency landing process - and not to say I'm experienced with emergency landings, but it's not like they never trained us on these back at home - was always confusing to me. Why would my identity play a role in the steps it would give me on how to survive the planet I just landed on? Was it used for some sort of register of who survived the crash? Either way, I was willing to do what the computer asked, because the panels of electronics on my right side were starting to let off just the tiniest amount of smoke.
My name was correct. Einar Nilvesson.
The first voice I heard on the surface of Lenaeus IVb, rather unfortunately, was the uncomforting and clinical sounds of the evacuation procedure.
"Load starship route."
It scared the hell out of me, because the speakers were making weird shaky noises from all the goop embossing their membranes, and the audio clip the computer used was just slightly incorrectly cropped at the beginning, making the first word sound more like "-Oad". I had to catch my breath.
The electronics to my right were now so hot, I could feel them from the chair's armrest (almost half a meter away). I wasn't ready to die in my own escape pod because the systems couldn't handle a high-speed impact - the literal thing they were designed to sustain. I would rather die from something a little more poignant, like a vicious wolf's hungers for human flesh, or maybe -
"-Oad starship route."
The computer, rather mercifully, had just reminded me that I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs thinking about how I was going to die.
I leaned forward and entered the Chimera's route. I actually started to tear up a bit when I went to select Earth, and then I started to think about all the people on the Chimera that probably died, and then I just started to realize how overwhelming this entire situation was and how screwed I was. But I guess my brain had my back, because it kicked in this weird veil of numbness that forced me to focus on my survival rather than my feelings. It was like some sort of emergency override.
I then had to enter one more bit of sentimental information. The date I left. September 2nd, 2088. I left knowing I would arrive at my destination decades later. I knew that right now. But I was still nervous to find out just how long I had been sleeping on that ship.
The procedure didn't bother telling me. It's probably not a good idea to tell people who have just landed on a foreign world after a critical failure to the spaceship that it's been however many years and that everyone they left behind on their home planet was dead. Instead, the system just told me that I was on the aforementioned Lenaeus IVb, a completely unimportant and sparsely populated T-world almost exactly halfway between Earth and Cidigon (my destination). My own calculations suggested a travel time of maybe around 30 years.
The computer opened up an additional window on the far side of the screen that displayed the steps taken after an emergency landing. Thanks to my agonizingly repetitive training, I knew by heart that the steps were 1. unload the pod's supplies, 2. extract the computer, and 3. extract the raw materials.
The procedure's voice started reading them out, but it ended up sounding something like:
"Unload pod supplies. Extract-t-t-t-t-t-t-t" followed by a systems crash.
I was pretty quick to realize that this was because the electronics to my right were firing out searing flames. I started upwards, slipped on the tiniest iota of pink goop on the floor, and tumbled under the navmon's stand. Metal is, of course, a painful thing to hit at high velocities, and I found that my knee severely suffered from the fall; there was also a sudden twang of pain in my palm, which I figured was due to some sort of cut. I remember trying to think so rapidly that it literally became a useless incomprehensible mesh of scenarios and ideas. I was so panicked that I couldn't even address the thing I was panicking over. I sort of just instinctually got back up and slammed my bloodied fist onto the door release button.
Bearing in mind I was potentially seconds away from catching fire, I had to consider if there was anything in the pod I had time to take with me. My mind fast-replayed all of my training and I quickly concluded that the supply drawer, stored in the bulkhead behind the chair, was the best option. It contained:
- a first aid kit plus a pocketknife,
- a compass,
- 6 days of drinkable/edible water and food,
- a portable water filter,
- a flashlight with batteries,
- a tarp with rope,
- a space blanket,
- and a mallet plus a few stakes for tent building.
I quickly ripped the drawer out of its slot and lugged it outside through the doorway as fast as I could. I collapsed on the grass maybe two meters away from the pod, and I watched as the vessel that saved my life went up in an enchanting cone of flame and smoke, carrying a plume of detritus into the sky.
Now that I wasn't in immediate danger, I was able to take in my surroundings a little. Like any other T-world, the environment was extremely Earth-like. I appeared to have landed on the bank of a wide river in the midst of a large grassy clearing that was flanked by a temperate coniferous forest. I could see birds fly overhead, taking care to avoid the smoke plume. The air was chilly, but the sky was clear.
The first thing I tasted on the surface of Lenaeus IVb was blood. Blood that I hadn't noticed was dribbling from both of my nostrils.
I was at first worried that I had hit my head in the crash without noticing, but it then became abundantly clear that the nosebleed - alongside the dizziness and the nausea I was just now noticing I had - was a result of a textbook case of cryptobiotic illness.
When in stasis on a spaceship, you normally wake up at the end of the journey in a relatively calm environment where nothing is on fire or exploding. I did not wake up in such an environment, and so my heartbeat had been through the roof for upwards of 20 minutes, meaning lots of blood flow. My mucous membranes were dried out (wonder if that's connected to the fact that I hadn't drank water in 30 years), and therefore weren't very tolerant of sudden rushes of blood. It's actually impressive I hadn't gotten a nosebleed until then.
While I was reveling in my amazing medical deduction, a full-on jet of blood shot out of my right nostril, and I realized how bad the situation could prove to be if I didn't take care of it right away. I applied pressure on my nose and whipped open the supply drawer I grabbed from the pod, snatching one of the two bottles of water and, not until now realizing just how ridiculously thirsty I was, downed it faster than I've ever downed water before.
By the time I was done, my nose had calmed somewhat, and my attention was pulled towards my hand. I was now able to see, clear as day, that I had a laceration from my thenar to the base of my pinky. The whole hand was throbbing in sync with my heartbeat. I decided to open the first-aid kit in the drawer, ripping off two small portions of gauze for my nostrils so that I could apply pressure to the wound on my hand instead.
I looked upwards, desperately wishing someone else would just hurry up and land here with me.
-
Within five minutes, I had both of my major sources of bleeding taken care of. I had awkwardly wrapped some more gauze around my hand, but it was already looking like I'd have to change it out for new dressings in a few minutes. Both of my nostrils were stuffed full of cotton, and I had just finished vomiting, so I was sort of hugging my own stomach in a very awkward way. I almost certainly looked very stupid. This didn't matter, because my wish didn't come true and I was still sitting alone in the clearing.
The pod had since mostly burned away, but there were a few stubborn flames still eating away at the electronic components. I watched as the blackened side panels fell off and sizzled the grass. The vessel's frame was now clearly visible, and it looked like the chair I was sitting on six minutes ago was completely melted away. I counted my lucky stars I didn't get knocked out when I fell over, or I'd have been toast. Literal toast, probably, for a hungry animal or something.
I now had to decide where to build my shelter. In other words, I had to decide whether to stay in the clearing or to wander off to parts unknown. Considering that my body wasn't in great shape - my knee was getting increasingly swollen and now stung to the touch - it seemed smart to stay put, especially considering the extra benefit that I could use the frame of the escape pod as shelter once it cooled down.
I also remembered the somewhat anecdotal lesson from training that mentioned how when a vessel suffers a critical failure in close range to a planet, many of the escape pods eject from it with such speed that they are unable to enter the atmosphere immediately - rather, their guidance systems force them to enter orbit around the planet, which gives them time to use their retro thrusters to slow down. Considering that the escape pods usually try to land as close to each other as possible, it was actually quite likely someone would touch down near me in the coming hour following a slowdown orbit - after all, the Chimera was spinning out of control, so most of the pods would have ejected real fast. Maybe I was just lucky I went through the atmosphere right away.
Or maybe I was the only one left.
Maybe I had no choice but to live out the rest of my life on a pointless T-world. A world which was imbued with all the beauty of Earth and then wasn't even colonized correctly. Yes, there were people on this planet, but I was willing to bet the nearest settlement wasn't for hundreds of kilometers. I'd either spend all my time searching for that mystical hypothetical settlement, or I'd go it alone and be ravaged by insanity and loneliness. I needed to be around people. I couldn't do it alone.
I realized that I was sitting there, starting to cry, bleeding from my nose and my hand and alternating between holding my knee and my stomach like I was some sort of incontinent old man. I was pathetic. I didn't even finish the landing procedure. The fire burned away the computer and the raw materials. Now I wouldn't be able to access comms or a GPS, and I wouldn't be able to build any structures with the materials, and I was a failure. I was a failure. I don't know why I had to be lucky enough to survive the crash. I imagined if, when I slipped over and fell, that the sharp object hit me in the neck instead of the hand. Then I'd bleed out in minutes, and before long I'd be burned away and my essence would drift up into the sky with the smoke plume and then collect in the clouds and rain back down. That would be a remarkably better use for my body than whatever I had to do with it.
I must have been dwelling in my depressive pit for several minutes, because when I was suddenly jolted to awareness by an enormous crackle-boom above me, the pod fire had gone out.
I looked up without delay, and at first all I saw was the blue sky. After an agonizing ten-odd seconds, I could make out a faint black dot. It was, indeed, another evac pod. At first, I assumed it would land maybe a couple hundred meters away in the forests; I realized far too late that it was actually heading almost directly at me, just at a very steep angle. I dove down to the ground. With my head facing sideways towards the river, I watched as it slammed into the water (creating a splash so large I felt a few droplets land on myself) and then ricocheted directly into the edge of the forest. It impacted a tree and hacked it clean in half, causing a chaotic sequence of crashes and crackles as the two bodies both fell to the forest floor. If there were any wildlife in the area, they had just been scared off.
Despite how much the pink impact foam had annoyed me (and sort of nearly killed me) earlier, I was praying ceaselessly that it worked as intended for whoever was in that pod.
-
The pod had a gargantuan dent, but it was on the side of the pod that was filled with electronics, not the side that the passenger sat in. I could see rivulets of the pink foam dribbling out from a small gap in between two panels. I walked around the edge of the pod and eyed the door. I heard the familiar hiss of the impact foam compressing, and then I heard a few bangs and thumps, and then the door opened.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The first word I ever said on the surface of Lenaeus IVb was "Hello?".
The person inside was disheveled as all hell. But that's okay, because so was I. They were bearded, chiseled, and somewhat wrinkled. They looked rougly 15 years older than me.
All they could let out was "Uh, where-" before a sudden wince of agony: "Christ, my arm. Ugh."
I leaned into the doorway. "Hey, man, I'm a doctor. I can help you if you need it."
They shook their head 'no', and then struggled to rise from their chair. I peered at their arm, and sure enough, it was bleeding. A lot, actually.
"Okay," the person asked as they reached to grab their supply drawer, "so where am I?"
"Oh, we - it's a T-world. Seems pretty safe and all, but it's cold and we actually landed at a really remote place," I stammered.
The person tossed the drawer out the door, taking little care to avoid my body. I had to dodge out of the way to avoid taking out my other knee.
"That's great. T-world."
The person sat back down in their chair, as if waiting for the evacuation procedure to commence, but it didn't. In fact, their computer didn't even turn on, which I would most likely attribute to the boulder-sized dent in the back of the pod.
I expected the person to make some sort of snarky remark about how the computer wasn't working, but instead they just grumbled and started to climb out of the pod, practically shoving me out of the way.
"Uh, so what's your name?"
The person finally made a meaningful duration of eye contact with me. "What, we're getting to know each other now?"
I was taken aback a little. "Yeah, we have to survive. Kinda hard to survive when we don't even know each other."
As I was speaking, the person had taken the mallet and a stake from their supply drawer, and they had then started to pry the panels off of the pod's hull. It was loud and annoying, but we talked over it regardless:
The person was quick to respond. "Yes, we need to survive, but nobody said it had to be as a group."
I struggled to find a good response for a moment. "So... you're just... gonna go off on your own? What?"
They nodded 'yes' in such a way as to say "hasn't that been made obvious?"
I stuttered through my 'wha's and my 'I's, but they just kept on prying the panels off. After they had removed a significant portion of them, they used the stakes to pry out the pod's now-exposed computer core.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but you're fully lucid right now, right?"
As it turned out, all it took to get them to stop and pay attention to me was a mildly implicatory insult. They approached me until they were close. Maybe a bit too close, had their face not been nice to look at.
"From the very instant my door opened, I could tell you're not the kind of person I want to survive with. Because I'm sure that in your books, 'survive' means 'let's be a big huggy bunch and work together!', and I'm sorry to break it to you there, intern, but that's not the kind of person I am. I'd rather spend my time focusing on the important questions, like 'how am I going to get my food?', or 'am I going to build my shelter or find it in the landscape?', or 'what's my goal here? Leave on a spaceship or live here the rest of my life?'."
There was a beat, and then they quickly vomited onto a tree (cryptobiotic illness is really awful).
"These are heavy questions to ask," the guy said, wiping their mouth of bile. "And since this is the last time we'll ever talk again, I'll pass on a word of advice: start thinking about those questions, rather than 'how many friends can I make today?'. You'll find it quite rewarding."
There was another beat. He then proceeded to pick up all of the paraphernalia he had gathered from his pod before stomping away like a grumpy yeti.
It was kind of wild to think about how poorly the day was going for me.
-
It wasn't until half an hour later that the hopelessness had really taken grip. I was sitting in the clearing next to my pod-skeleton, grumpiness plastered all over my face, when my brain decided to go "alright, let's turn on the waterworks."
And thus, the first time I ever cried on the surface of Lanaeus IVb.
But like most other crying sessions I've had, I came out of it feeling alright (the beautiful sunset in front of me helped a lot). I guess I just needed to express and de-stress before I'd be in a good position to tackle my remaining problems, which were as follows: one, my hand was gross and icky and dirty and I really needed to swap out my dressings; two, I needed to set my pod up so I'd be able to sleep in it, because it was soon to be nighttime; three, I needed to follow that guy's advice and consider the 'important questions', because what he said actually had quite a lot of merit, despite it being rather mean.
Step one was simple and took little time. Step two, less so.
I first checked the pod hull to ensure it was all cooled down, which it was. I needed to cover it so that I'd have some protection from the elements, but the tarp from the supply drawer was too small to fit over the entire hull of the pod, so I used my mallet and stakes plus some of the rope to tie it to the ground. What resulted looked somewhat like a tipi, albeit with the bottom uncovered. It was such that after I pulled up a section of the tarp and crawled in, I had a narrow view of the ground through the uncovered part if I laid my head to the floor. This meant I'd probably be freezing that night, but at least I'd be able to see any coming danger before it got to me. If it came to that.
I got back out, tossed my remaining supplies into the shelter, took one last look at the sunset, and then got back in. The supply drawer was there to magically save me once again, since space blankets are very warm and lovely, but unfortunately I had no choice but to use the melted and warped footrest of my seat as a pillow. It was deeply uncomfortable.
As I laid there wrapped up like a burrito, slowly warming up from my own body heat, I stared at the night sky through the tarp and realized Lanaeus IVb had a moon. It was of similar colour to Earth's, but it was much larger in the night sky. It was the perfect thing to stare at while I pondered the 'important questions'. As for shelter, I could see the pod serving me well for quite some time, just as long as I could keep the tarp in good shape. As for food, I had some rations from the supplies and then I'd have to figure something out. I could probably rely on hunting, although what would I use as a weapon? My mallet?
Ultimately, I started to wonder how I was going to survive if I didn't have anyone else with me.
In fact, that guy must have been crazy. Nobody in their right mind would opt to stay alone on a wilderness-inundated planet with a massive share of natural-borne hostilites. It's just smarter to survive with other people. I was willing to bet he wouldn't make it long. Not with that 'ooh, I'm too tough to be vulnerable' attitude.
My thoughts were completely shattered by the third jumpscare of the day. Another enormous crackle-boom. I jolted so hard that my head fell straight onto the floor.
At the same instant, I heard a sudden flurry of activity in a nearby bush. It sounded like an animal had been jumpscared all the same, and was now hauling ass out of the clearing. I counted my lucky stars I waited for it to go by before I got out of my pod, because the creature I saw run by was unlike anything I had ever seen before. I was only able to discern its legs, which were equine and a strikingly deep red. The moonlight, which was evidently brighter than that on Earth, illuminated it enough such that I could see weird ulcer-like holes in its skin. It let out a harsh groan, bordering on a yell, and then it was gone.
I laid there frozen for a minute, sort of mildly tripped out, and then summed up the courage to open up the tarp. I gripped my mallet tightly in my hand, trying to stay prepared for the contingency in which I'd have to beat a creepy red horse creature to death. I looked into the forest ahead of me, curious to see if it was still visible, but then I remembered that I needed to keep my eyes on the pod that was currently landing. I looked in the opposite direction across the river and there it was, about to smash into the forest not far from the grumpy guy's landing site. The only difference is that this time, it didn't destroy any trees.
I was in the midst of wading across the river towards the newcomer when I noticed it was billowing smoke. That made me want to move a little quicker.
-
By the time I was there, the pod's occupant had already blasted the door open. They were on fire.
"Oh my God! Are you okay?!"
They were screaming and patting every appendage of their body trying to put it out, which told me they weren't recalling the three sacred steps:
"Stop, drop, and roll!"
They obeyed, and when they were too fatigued to continue, I had already thrown my mallet to the gorund, rushed over, and began to pat out the few rebellious flames that were still desparate to burn their clothes away.
"Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
They were clearly in a lot of pain, because they sounded like they normally had a very mild voice, and yet at that moment they were speaking with quite some tension. "I think. It burned a lot."
I didn't know what to say. "That... looked painful."
For the second time since I had met them, their tone took a sudden turn. "Wait, my pod! It's burning!"
I turned around and saw a sight I was now familiar with: a mercilessly blazing escape pod. In a style not too dissimilar to something you might see in a goddamn cartoon, we both slowly peered upwards and saw that the inferno had caught on the branches of a tree, and now there was a veritable forest fire in the making.
I was eager to pull them away and take them across the river to my shelter, but their survival instincts were sort of in overdrive, and so they instead decided to get up and run the opposite direction into the woods. No matter how much I shouted after them, telling to 'stop' or at least 'wait up', the fire spoke over me and they did not return. It was soon clear that my only option was to chase after them. And so I did, although I was sure to pick up my mallet before I set off.
Following about a minute and a half of orange-lit sprinting and limping and panting, I finally caught sight of their silhouette (they had stopped to vomit real quick), and I made one last mad dash to get within earshot.
"Stop! Wait! We have to go the other way! I have a shelter over there!"
They turned around, wiped their mouth, and cupped their hand around their ears. "What?!"
"SHELTER! I have a shelter nearby!"
They began to sprint back to me, and we would have met up halfway, except they tripped over a root or something and collapsed onto the ground. I was there in a flash, ready to pull them back up.
"Okay, I have to ask again. Are you alright? Did you get badly burned? Did that fall hurt?"
They were panting. "I don't know, I think I'm high on adrenaline right now or something, 'cause I feel fine."
I took a moment to breathe.
"Okay, I think we probably overreacted to that fire a bit."
They shook their head. "No. Those were pine trees. They're flammable."
"Okay, well we're in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night, so let's head back to my shelter so we're safe," I said.
"Okay, where is it?" they asked.
"I'm on the bank of a river not far from where you landed, and my pod caught on fire just like yours, but I was able to use the frame as a shelter. Two people can fit in there."
They nodded. I felt an urge to ask them something:
"Okay, wait. One thing first."
"Yes?"
"Who are you? What's your name?"
"Ziva," they said timidly.
I extended my hand. "I'm Einar. I'm a doctor. My pronouns are he/him."
They extended theirs back, and we shared a handshake. "I'm a botanist. She/her."
We began to walk. I assumed it would be easy to know which direction to head, because we had started a massive bright visible fire where her pod was, and from there it would be easy to find the river and cross it, but I guess we had gone down a small slope, because I couldn't see the faintest damn hint of light or orangeness anywhere. Based on her expression, neither could she.
"Well, shit. Where are we?" I asked, sort of half joking and half serious.
She began to head in a specific direction. I followed her, assuming her internal compass was in working condition. It wasn't. There was just more moonlit forest.
"Okay, this isn't a big deal. We didn't run that far. Let's just try the other way," I suggested.
And so we did, and there was more moonlit forest. We were both concerned enough to stop still and go silent.
When I thought about it, I realized that I was running at full speed for a minute and a half straight, and that I remembered going up and down several variations in the terrain. We actually had run quite far. That was really, really bad news.
And of course, the Universe was ready to play one of its priceless cosmic jokes: the instant the term 'bad news' went through my head, I heard an inhuman scream in the near distance. I raised my mallet to the ready, more grateful to have remembered to bring something in that moment than I ever had been. Ziva kind of just crouched down behind my legs.
"What in the fuck was that?"
I tried to speak quietly. "That sounded a lot like a creature I saw earlier."
She responded instantly, almost cutting off the end of my sentence. "What was it?"
"It was like a horse, but red and maybe a bit larger, and it seemed like something nobody would want to fight."
She pressed her head against my thigh. "That's just great. Awesome."
There was one more inhuman scream, followed by a remarkably human scream. A scream that I recognized.
It was the go-it-aloner! The alpha wolf guy!
Without even the slightest delay, I ran off in the direction of the noise, and Ziva followed suit after a brief pause of confusion. Before ten seconds had elapsed, I was close enough to the scene to be able to discern the following:
The horse creature seemed to be the same one I had seen earlier, considering it had the same ulcer formations on its calves, and it was absolutely tweaked out. It had infiltrated the grumpy person's campsite, which featured a tent and a rather hearty campfire (that luckily wasn't setting any trees alight). It had just thrown the person against a downed log, and it was bucking all over the place and sort of kicking them in the legs, although it didn't seem to be doing it purposefully. The guy was periodically screaming, and the horse thing kept on retorting with whinnies and neighs.
I decided the best course of action would be to use the mallet to bash its brains in.
I sprinted forwards and stepped foot on the same downed log the guy was pressed against, and then I launched into the air towards the horse's upper body. Even though I had no time to look, I could tell the grumpy guy was probably staring in awe at my incredible moves.
The mallet landed against the horse's skull with a disgusting thud. It immediately stumbled over, but it didn't yet collapse; I sat up with my legs wrapped around its neck and swung once more. It fell to the ground, taking me down with it. It was large enough to shift the dirt beneath its feet. Blood began to seep out of its ears and eyes, and revolting pockets of pus emerged from its ulcers.
The first thing I ever killed on the surface of Linaeus IVb was a diseased red horse creature.
-
The grumpy guy was ready with a comment. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
I had just finished dismounting the horse, and I was having trouble not tripping over its legs. "Okay, this is a long story- "
"Nope, I don't want to hear it." They attempted to stand up, but as it turns out, being repeatedly kicked in both legs by an animal three times your strength is enough to cause a reasonable amount of damage. That is to say, they were immediately screaming in pain.
We both rushed over. I tried prodding the guy's knees. They felt tender, and he tried to wince and kick me in the face, but he was unable to move either of his feet at all. His pants weren't ripped, though, which told me he probably didn't have any major skin wounds. That was good, because I didn't want to deal with any more bleeding for the day.
"Sorry, I should have warned you I was going to poke them. They're almost definitely fractured."
As the guy sighed in defeat and placed their head in their hands, Ziva's face suddenly lit up as if she had just now registered what was said ten seconds prior. "Wait, do you guys know each other?"
I nodded. "Yeah, this person - Okay, can you tell me your name?"
They bitterly sputtered out: "Ray."
Ziva continued my line of questioning. "Pronouns?"
They looked up at her. "What?"
We repeated the question.
"Ugh, you guys are annoying me. He/him."
I nodded. "Okay, so I'm Einar, and this is Ziva."
A beat. I stood up.
"Okay, Ray, look. I know you don't like people, or at least people like us, but you've severely injured both of your knees. You can't move, feed yourself, or gather supplies without our help."
"You think I didn't know that?" he asked bitterly.
"Why don't we cut a deal?" I retorted, and the other two stared blanky at me.
"We stay here at this nice campsite, and in return we take care of you and make sure you heal properly," I explained.
Ray proceeded to grumble, then get lost in thought for a moment, and then kind of tilt his head side to side as if he were physically weighing up the pros and cons. After an agonizing thirty seconds of this, he finally let out the most reluctant 'okay' I've ever heard.
Ziva and I smiled at one another.
-
Within ten minutes, I had used four equally-sized branches to fashion two rudimentary splints for Ray's legs. Unfortunately, this used up much of his gauze and tape, but I was confident they'd be put to good use.
By now, Ray was resigned to his injures enough that he let me carry him into his tent. He was still in excruciating pain, so I gave him some fast-acting oxycodone from the first aid kit, and in minutes he was out like a log.
The campsite was laid out in such a way that the horse was taking up most of the sleeping room, so Ziva and I had to make our beds (well, our halves of Ray's space blanket) on opposite sides of the body.
The first time I ever slept on Lenaeus IVb was in a rather unorthodox position surrounded by some unorthodox things. But I was still pretty happy as I drifted off to sleep, because I couldn't help but think of the possible future this little group had together. Of course, my mind wandered from there real fast and started to dream up some pretty ridiculous scenarios.
The last thing I thought before I dozed off was "are we facing the wild, or is the wild facing us?"
Yeah, I don't know either. My mind gets cheesy when I'm tired.