Chapter 2
Uffer’s sat there for a time, basking in the sun light and pondered Effie’s words. They didn’t understand, he wanted to accelerate and expand their ability to maintain equilibrium with any ecosystem on any world. Why not accelerate research. This world was already unbalanced after all, surely a little extra field testing couldn’t do much more harm than had already been done. On top of that what had they meant about ancestral knowledge? He knew most buffers, at least those descended from other buffers in their urban settlements, Inherited a store of memories from their progenitors, but since the knowledge of a parent buffer was typically reordered and divided between their offspring, it was not always coherent. In safe and secure living conditions, this information only became accessible as a Buffer reached mental and physical maturity, Uffer’s own memories from his forebears were mostly just generations of cultivation work, a few snippets from an ancestor three generations ago who was an aero-space engineer, which had helped him in his training for this job and a lot of great interpersonal bonds with half-forgotten loved ones. Perhaps, he thought to himself, Effie had some ancestors more directly involved in the horrors of early colonisation, he should have been more careful with his words. Well. said FenBrilly from a place which sounded like it was just over his shoulder but he knew was inside his head Maybe you should have come out and asked for advice from the start?
“Advice about what, I said what was on my mind, I wish we could get to the testing phase more quickly in our research”
Because you hope that if you can find a way for buffers to integrate into alien ecosystems, it will mean you can spend the next century of your life settling new worlds. You should have just asked them what they thought you should do when your tour here is over!”
Uffer’s nearly laughed out loud at the notion, “That’s at least two years away, why would I have to consider that now?”
Because you don’t know who you are now your education is finished and I have gotten out of Habituation Therapy”
“You haven’t gotten out of Habituation Therapy, you have just been judged fit to enter society”
And you think that means I’ll outgrow you, but I’ve barely figured out who I am, I can’t make you a complete person, and isn’t it better I learn to relate to other creatures as myself, and not as some extension of you?
“You ask that like you don’t know the answer, but you figured out exactly what I was thinking quite quickly”
I follow your internal machinations because I am imprinted onto them, I can only tell you what my Fenidur would think about your thoughts at the time of my imprint, I was still uncertain about the decision when you left
“So you know me better than you know yourself?”
Can you really say you expected different?
“I suppose not”
Brilly had come to sapience in one of the more uncomfortable ways in which a tindruilite could do so, having it thrust upon her after a life in a more predatory animalistic state of being in the Forests of Life, one of the most diverse, ill understood and largest wild regions of Tindruit. Uffer’s had helped her through the process of becoming a self aware participant within the natural world and learning to be a social animal.
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He waited an additional Ont as the light of the star asserted itself over the station and he pulled nutrients from the soil in his pouch and from the stations atmosphere, exhaling oxygen partially into the station and partially into his own air bladder, a multi-purpose organ which assisted with swimming and, in a pinch, emergency oxygen/propulsion.
By the time he was done, the ground team was finished docking and through decontamination and writing up their post experimental reports in the zero-gravity environment of the central spire, which contained the primary docking bay when he arrived to greet them, taking advantage of his air bladder to propel himself horizontally in short bursts of gas to arrive quickly. The returning team was team 6 from the last set of deployments 8 days previously, Dittockney, Kedaric, Lingthan and Eckreet, station veterans and aged scientists all but one.
Uffer’s noted that one member, Maroon-Teal, was missing, an accident in the field perhaps.
The youngest, Eckreet Fennestri Unthred, who responded first to Uffer’s greeting. “Ready to report on all our observations, written in tactile and chemical form in addition to visual, I had a lot of time to think whilst we waited for pre-launch checks and repairs, I would have done the same for my personal logs but the others asked me to double check all of their own reports, I fear they think I’m only good for writing, wouldn’t let me near the apparatus, and though I respect that record keeping is important I wish they would trust my expertise more, after all I have done quite a lot of study into the atmospheric samplers and dispersers, and many of them aren’t that different to the machines we used in the old food forests I was hatched on, and the nitrogen accumulators I worked with in my wandering years wer….”
Uffer’s had drawn his larger arms down to his smaller arms in a gesture requesting silence, emphasising this by opening his thick lips to reveal teeth rather sharper than one might expect for a predominantly light consuming buffer. “I see you have a lot to tell me Eck, but there are some things more important to know at this time than others, I have my own duties today after all”
A slightly taken aback Eckrite paused and then said, “I have the reports here sir, the others are filling in their personal logs with the last details and Dittockny is submitting a new equipment request that occurred to them on the way up” He handed Uffer’s a thick container of light but durable metal which held just as he said, three separate documents written in visual, tactile and olfactory writing styles, at least, Uffers presumed the third one, wrapped in a translucent film and apparently blank in page was in fact, covered in the essential oils used for scent writing.
The visual document read “Genetic Marker dispersal and Induced Native Stem Cell Growth through Genetic distillation Experiment 24, 40/20/16/231 ZA – 06/21/16/231 ZA: Contaminated zone: A, Planet: Orica, classification: Contained.” Uffer’s eagerly took the container in hand and thanked Eckreet before addressing the room as a whole.
“Away team, it is my turn to do the debriefing today, and I’ll be doing it in the a-7 drawing room on the residential deck. Meet me there in 20 krots and tell me how the subjects took to the markers, if you have the time give me all the juicy gossip that happened whilst you were down on our little cancer world”
“We know the drill pink shoot*[1], we’ve been doing this work since you broke your first pupal sack.” Replied Kedaric, Uffers laughed at the remark, knowing there was no ill intent behind it. It didn’t take long on this station to become part of the scenery, entering a choral mind on rotation and surviving the station’s brutal yet monotonous rotation of duties made it relatively easy to understand and respect, if not like each other, though the station veterans never let you forget they were more experienced than you.
Eckreet, raised one of her arms and interjected, “but sir I wanted to recount my first experience groundside with you first, I think you might be able to relate better than my colleagues”
Uffer’s glanced at the mess of layered fabrics and plastics hanging off the Buffer’s front legs and assorted manipulator limbs and said, “Only once you’ve finished putting your vacuum suit away, you can’t leave the tidying up to everyone else.”
The other members of the ground team grunted in agreement, and Uffer’s flipped himself over and jetted off into the ladder tubes, which ran the length of the stations central spire.
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[1] most young plants on Tindruit are pink, so pink shoot is a term denoting the young and inexperienced.