Navigation on the northern ring sea was tricky, since a storm brewed up out of nowhere on the first night. There weren't any clouds, but there was wind and rough water, causing a bit of sea sickness for Hakeber. It didn't seem to bother the Confederate lobster-buses though, and there wasn't any rain.
By morning everything was calm again, and the compass and sextant readings put them closer to the far shore than should be possible.
"I suppose this means we are on the right path," Dr. Farfle suggests. "There's no natural weather on this world, after all, and that storm moved us closer to our goal."
"I think so, too." After the sudden storm, Tasha has remained near her post, ready to respond, when she hasn't been pulled away by sleep and life's little necessities. She had expected a drowsy trip, a slow, straight, uneventful passage across still water with a sky whose main attraction was going from day to night and back again. It would have made navigation easy, but it also would have meant a month or more of travel by sea. With the storm her opinion changed, and if pressed she'd admit to prefering excitement and rapidity over a sedate cruise. "I wonder if they used specialized boats, maybe made by the world, or if thatw as forbidden and you had to bring your own or use ritual ones. I didn't see any along the way."
"More to the point, it means that the planet's mechanisms are still working as they were meant to.. probably," the Eeee scientist comments. "I doubt the environment was entirely artificial however many millions of years ago the last pilgrims came this way, personally. I think what we have now is a simulation of what once was."
"I've noticed societies often tend to a struggle-with-nature, defeat nature, try to incorporate nature, simulate nature cycle. They then either die out, move on to another state of being, or revert through disaster or choice. Not all of them do it, of course, but enough. These people seemed to; they seemed to try to hold on to what was." The young woman sits up from second-pass revision of a third alternate route she'd been working on in case the storm relocated them farther off course, looking over to Farfle. "If the stories are true, then they might have increased their technology levels rapidly at first. The time of transition, maybe that stuck in their societal memory and they kept to it as some kind of ideal or resistance to what came too quickly."
"Well, there is no real reason to think this is their birth world either," Farfle notes. "It seems purpose built to me. A city that could house a trillion beings.. and no way to support them. At least no way that's been found yet."
The two bug-vehicles are side by side, so that it's easy for people to move between them during the day. Yue and Hakeber approach with small, compact handmeals (what Tasha would call a sandwich, just much denser). "We bring food and water," Hakeber declares.
"I don't know. It could have been their birth world. I've seen that some civilizations reduce their birth world beyond the ability for it to sustain itself, through developement or war. They may have replicated their original world as it was, to show they could, and could fix what was lost. To be their shining jewel, maybe an administrative or cultural center supported by colonies." Tasha scratches her nose. Once again, the world is dry. She turns from the man to peer through a window port, then reaches over with her hoof to hit the hatch -- carapace? -- release. "Welcome to Bug Ship One. I speak for our leader, who accepts these gifts on behalf of all Horsians."
"Who said they were gifts?" Hakeber asks, as she and Yue enter the strange cockpit. "Maybe I was just going to let you watch while I ate and drank!" Hakeber tries to waggle her eyebrows, but fails. It just looks like she's going from surprised to angry over and over again.
"The sea has been quiet," Yue reports. "I didn't sense anything during the storm. But it was spread out over such a large area so.. it may have been too diffuse for me to pick up."
"Then I would have to overpower you and do stuff to you until you surrendered to the might of our Empire!" Tasha wiggles her fingers at her friend, in a not-at-all menacing sort of way. She turns to wiggle at Yue, too, and perks her ears. "Well, like Doctor Farfle was saying, at least we now know this part of the world's systems still seems to work. It suggests the world's in good condition, system and subsystem wise. We haven't seen anything wildly malfunctioning."
"That's assuming the planet didn't kill off all of the Stonecutters originally," Yue suggests, and sits on an extrusion near Tasha. She waggles a wrapped handmeal at her, and asks, "Can you reason why I might think that?"
"Are you offering me a treat for performing for you?" Tasha asks Yue in time. She turns to Doctor Farfle and raises her brows as if to say: humans, right? She looks back and arches her brows, head tilting. "I'll bite. Okay. One, we've got cognition from the framework of the world. Two, we have part of that framework that eats people, and I think maybe it turns them in to more Wellstone or something. Parts. Maybe they even live in a virtual society, or, uhm, are semi-awake within the walls. Oh: four, there's no sign of conflict anywhere in the system that I saw, not here or anywhere else. Five, if they left they left a lot behind and finally six, no bodies, no bones, and unless the planet cleaned up a war it's the one who can kill and make things poof. Am I right?"
"Yes.. but can you extend it further?" Yue asks, and sniffs the handmeal. "What does this world have in common with so many others?"
"Besides the total lack of a population?" Tasha rubs her nose, she isn't exactly sure. Archaeology and history are things she generally leaves to Hakeber and Yue, who both seem intent on lording their superior training over her and thus making her rethink their bunking in her ship. It's all the worse that food is the unwitting hostage in this negotiation of detection. "Well, what about sacrifices? They may have run out of them, the need to feed their god-angel-deity, their Samael.But that's not in common. You mena the other worlds? They seemed heavily exploited, I didn't check if they were entirely. They could have run out of something. But, maybe they were also afraid that they couldn't pay their bargain anymore? If it happened around the time of the great extinction, they could have had very few people left."
"Oh," Tasha says after a moment, sitting straighter. "There also weren't any ships left in port that I know of. No artifact-vessels. If the planet killed them all, there should be some left behind."
"The mysterious galactic extinction cycle, affecting the most advanced civilizations," Yue says. "There are all sorts of theories and very little actual evidence about what actually happens. How would you selectively cull advanced, spacefaring species? I think the common element is the most likely one: their technology. As you said, this world could have easily eaten the inhabitants and any other material or technology left behind. The First Ones had technology we can't begin to understand, and the Ancients and Old Ones and so on were probably even more advanced. Their technology didn't protect them, so maybe it was used to kill them."
Tasha points at Yue, nodding. "I think that's a very good idea. If the hypothesis of the Sifra -- the Xilfrim -- is true, we know they had great powers to effect underlying reality. One of my Khattan teachers suggested the universe may work like a book or simulation, and the Sifra were the best at rewriting and changing the code beneath it all. Their level of understanding was probably as good or better than their peers, so they could probbaly bring a ship -- or maybe they didn't even need a ship -- and edit reality just so enough that the target's technology killed them. Like electronic warfare, only ... Reality warfare. Subtle. I thought maybe they just erased the populations from reality by removing their 'names' from the book of existence."
"Erasing them.." Hakeber mutters. "But why not erase everything about them then? Why leave anything at all?"
"Well, it really comes down to motive," Yue suggests.
The human then hands over the food to Tasha.
"You ladies have disturbing lunch conversations," Dr. Farfle notes.
"We know the Sifra may have had clients. It could be a form of test that the Sifra didn't need to build themselves. "Oh look, the new species can turn on a stone-computer. How cute. Make a note of that, move them up a canidate slot." Everyone else is just sucking up 'their' resources. Maybe their sentience, their 'observer-ness' and their capacity to matcb Sifran reality-warping is also a problem. They don't want competition." The handmeal is accepted, the young woman giving Yue a thumbs up with a free hand as she muches a moment. I did it.
"This is pretty good for us. Some of our dinner conversations are actually scary," Tasha asides to the Doctor, smiling before taking another bite.
"I just want to know how the First Ones lived," Dr. Farfle. "Plenty of mystery there. How they died can wait until I'm dead. It'll be of more interest to me then."
"It is a little depressing," the hybrid woman admits, waggling her lunch as if to indicate the sadness. "I' more interested in this 'wizard' character and their deities, this Samael. Do you know anything about them, Doctor?"
"I've listened to Dr. Broom's mythology references, but right now I do not want to make guesses," the Eeee claims. "Miss Hakeber seems to be correct about the pilgrimage aspect so far, so there must be something special about the journey to that odd city. If there's a wizard and an angel - or demon - at the end of it, I'll know more when you do."
"Oh, I'm sure it will be exciting." Very exciting, if I'm not dragging a corpse back. Tasha doesn't usually interact with higher beings infront of others, so it may be a new experience there, too, and may well bring in to question what she and her team are really here for. Who they are, and more so, who they may serve. Problems for later, though. She tosses the rest of her meal in her muzzle and chomps it down, then leans back and holds her arms out to Hakeber. "At least we'll be arriving soon rather than in a month."
Hakeber assumes the arms are an invitation, and sits in Tasha's lap. "A month would be a bit long," the Karnor notes. "If the storm hits every night, how long will it actually take?"
"Two more day-night cycles.. we'd reach the northern continent on the third day," Farfle suggests.
Tasha hugs on Hakeber, her point of comfort, so much like her moniker except unlike the stuffed bear Hakeber is probably smarter than she is. "Maybe we'll get lucky and the continent will also help us along. Build roads, maybe play some music, there could be rest stops and souvineers."
"Or challenges," Yue cautions. "I have to wonder if real pilgrims had to carry everything with them though. We just have to hope the orbital supply drops will work."
"And that they don't require something only they would know about, or something only they can do, like who has the best tentacle hair." The hybrid does have to wonder if tentacle-hair is easier to manage; probably. Her hair takes forever now that she actually has to style it, or more often, have Liza do it. "Me, I'm hoping for souvineers. I want a Stonecutter doll and maybe a tea set."
"This place is made to handle a lot of people and traffic, so it's unlikely to cater solely to the Stonecutters," Farfle opines. "It may be a stretch, but this could all be a single large religious complex. And this 'wizard' of yours, according to Broom, is supposedly one that teaches people how to become gods."
Tasha nods to that, then rests her head on Hakeber's. She's certainly interested in whatever Samael and his wizard friend were up to, however much she tries to deflect it with what she hopes is also moral boosting humor. "I hope it doesn't involve lectures." Another one. "But, there may have been people from all over coming to listen to this ... This guide. Stonecutters, and others. I wonder if anyone succeeded? And if they're still around?"
"You mean the Progenitors?" Farfle asks.
Hakeber can feel it as Tasha chokes, well before it becomes obvious when she turns and clears her throat. "Maybe not them." Gods such as they are.
"My people don't have Progenitor myths, but I know every species that claims one has a different explanation for where they came from," Farfle notes.
"Who knows. Maybe they're grouchy and depressing, sarcastic beings of fire who don't know what they're doing or anything about the world they're toying with, and then can't be bothered to fix anything because it's 'not their problem'." The hug has become rather tight, and becomes more so as Tasha talks. "Probably made of stone or something," she mumbles.
"Glurk!" Hakeber complains as the hug tightens.
"You sound bitter," Farfle notes. "Is this an uncomfortable subject for you?"
"Why are you-- oh, sorry Hake!" The young woman lets go, awkwardly patting the other young woman on the back to presumably help her breath. She looks up and frowns at Farfle. "Uhhhmm, I sort of know those stories. I heard alot from, um, belivers. From higher ups. Powers above me. How faith and reality clash, sometimes."
"Sometimes?" Farfle asks. "I would think faith was completely removed from reality," the Eeee says. "You don't need to have faith in things that are real after all. You can poke them."
"You can kick them too." Tasha sits up, then gently nudges Hakeber from her lap. "Well, enough about that. Since the weather is nice, I'm going up top to maybe take a nap or watch the water do nothing or something. Come and grab me if there's a problem." She stands, stretches a moment, then walks towards the hatch and lets herself out.
The Confederate bio-vehicles churn sand as they crawl from the surf onto the southern shore of the northern continent - although the sand smooths back into place behind them. The beach is pristine and white, with no rocks or shells or washed up debris. Beyond it is a jungle. The trees are spiny and multi-trunked, looking like free-standing, land based mangroves. They sport broad, red leaves with serrated edges. There's nothing like underbrush, however - just flat ground between the widely spaced, towering trees.
From atop her ship, Tasha surveys the land. It's all very unseemly to her, like a world that had started to think about maybe having some life and weather, but stopped just short of committing. An unfinished project, even if this is how she thinks the ancients wanted it. A diaorma in full, without an investment in portraying life. "Well, I don't like the looks of those trees, they look like they might be dangerous or poisonous or both, but there's no underbrush to tangle anything. No road, either."
"I want to stretch my legs," Hakeber says, and heads out to try the sand. "Any land that isn't moving is good enough for me."
"But I saw the land move, I think it's tidying up after us." Tasha joins Hakeber, sliding down the side of her vehicle on her butt to thump down on to the ground. She leans down to look at the beach, reaching with a finger to draw her name in the sand, then counting to see how long it takes before the world cleans it up.
It persists for longer than the wake of the bug-craft. But after a minute it begins to soften and smooth out.
"This world is way too quiet," Hakeber complains, looking at the alien forest. Yue is sitting in the sand with her eyes closed, and Gabriel and Dr. Broom are climbing down from the other bug, along with Nessus.
Tasha snorts. Not a laugh, but a expression of discovery and some degree of bemusement. "Huh." She straightens, commiting the delay to memory in case it should be useful later. That done she turns and walks over to join Hakeber, turning to peer at the trees. "We should have our scientists look at these things, they look like they could do anything. Walk. Chop. It's the chopping that worries me."
It's Nessus that approaches the trees ahead of any others. And knocks on the wood with a fist.
"I really should learn something about medicine, Hake-bear," Tasha asides to her friend as the two watch the tree maybe attack, maybe not.
The tree behaves like a tree. "It isss hollow sounding," the Naga reports. This brings Farfle and his assistant to do a more thorough auditory examination.
"I know enough first aid to deal with a bar brawl," Hakeber says.
"No attack trees. Yet. Check." The hybrid checks of a imaginary list, flicking a finger through the air. "I bet you do, Miss Drinky-bear." She pats her friend's shoulder, then walks over to join Gabriel and scootch over to hold his hand. "Enjoy your bug piloting, Captain?"
"Well, I didn't seem to do much," Gabriel says. "The ocean brought us here. So.. what's special about this spot? We should test the flare system before going further in though."
Tasha smiles. It's often how she feels piloting modern vessels, so much unlike droving. "Maybe this is the spot Ancient Mariner Archon-priest Frog first landed, heralding the beginning of such-and-such and the first step in the jounrey of so-and-so. You know, be respectful." She gives the man's hand a squeeze and lets him go so he can tend to the system. "Once we've done that, we can move on. 'Almost' there!"
"We're good on supplies, but I want to make sure we can get more," Gabriel says, and loads a green flare before firing it upwards. "I take it this beach doesn't allow sand castles," he notes after packing the flare gun back up. "Those trees look like something you'd find on Abaddon, don't you think?"
"I thought they might be walking murder-trees," Tasha admits to her mate, which is practically the same thing as 'Abaddonian trees.' "And you have about a minute to build your sand castle before the sand cleans itself up. Well," she cocks her head to the side, " ... unless the world really likes your design. Maybe it could happen?"
"Hmm, maybe we can send it requests in Galactic Six," Gabriel muses.
"You're thinking of trying to order something from the planet by drawing in the sand?" Tasha cocks her head the other way, bird-like. "Hokay. If you link the database for me I can go test it, I already did the nav plotting."
"It needs to be something simple like.. 'what direction?'," Gabriel notes. "Ask Yue to do it. She's fluent, I think."
"She'll act all superior, you know." Gabriel gets a tail tug, which has become Tasha's new 'I love you' move, and also means 'I'm here', without having to take Gabriel's attention away from what he's working on or interupt conversations. She heads off, finding Yue.
"Hey sinister Human master," Tasha greets the woman in a joke on her earlier food tease, tapping her shoulder, "Gabriel thinks we might be able to talk to the planet by using G-Six and drawing in the sand, dirt, that kind of thing."
"That's an interesting theory," Yue admits. "So, what do you want to say to it?"
"Ask it for directions? It must know where we're going, because it already helped us get here. I think it must be constantly calculating our path and destination." Tasha tilts her head, then shrugs a little. "Gabriel specifically said, ask: 'What direction'."
"Okay," Yue says, and starts writing in the sand. There are very few apparent characters involved. It stays for a minute or so before fading away. "Now.. we just need to look for a reply.."
Tasha straightens, turning to sweep her gaze across the landscape. She does not state her concern this may be cheating, somehow, or that the reply may be negative.
There isn't anything obvious. But then, something could have changed that Tasha isn't noticing. Gabriel is busy looking up at the sky, and the scientists are still clustered around the trees, with Dr. Broom actually climbing up one quite easily, using the spikes and spurs for handholds.
"I don't see anything obvious; I think I'll check around, maybe replot our course and see if anything celestial has moved." It's daylight, so she isn't going to be seeing the stars, but maybe there's something else. "Keep your eye, uh, mind out for shifts the planet, it might come before it does anything."
"I'll try, but it isn't quite like the city here," Yue says, and goes back to her apparent meditation.
And so Tasha pulls out her navigation tools and drops her butt on to the sand. She peers up at the sky, then to the ring, and finally the sun before sweeping her gaze across the heavenly vault. As she does she takes measurements, seeing if the visual has changed from the actual -- she recalls the planet distorts images of the ground and may be able to do the reverse.
Hakeber comes up next to Tasha. "I don't know what these landscape is supposed to encourage us to think about," she admits. "There should be something if this is a proper pilgrimage. Maybe there used to be actual living guides originally." She also looks up at the ring, since that's what Tasha was looking at. "I can see the spoke we came down," she notes. "Is that our reference point?"
"One of them," Tasha answers, sounding distracted. She's got a lot of practice fix taking and all the otherparts of 'primitive' navigation, but it's still not reflexive. It requires her focus. "The sun is one, and the ring's distance when measured to the surface, it's arc. Then there are the stars, too, but of course you can't see them now, or I'd be checking those, too. I'm looking for deviations."
According to the ring arc, their latitude is correct. The three visible spokes give her the longitude. So far they seem to be where they're supposed to be. Gabriel also calls out, having spotted the supply module parachute.
Tasha quickly pockets her gear, then shrugs to Hakeber. "I guess we don't need help. Up we go, time to chase parachutes!" And then she's up and, if not exactly running, jogging very quickly.
The supply module is teardrop-shaped, but the parachute makes it easy to find on the beach. There is a smiling, cartoony Silent-One face painted on the side giving a big wink. "I guess we know who packed it this time," Gabriel notes.
"Terrans, Silent-Ones are too dignified." But Tasha grins. She races over to the package and leans over, pulling her belt knife which is stashed next to her sword's scabard on the same side. She quickly cuts the chute lines just in case a storm arises to suck their supplies out to sea, then begins pulling in the chute itself. "I wonder who won the betting pool?"
Hakeber tries to fold up the parachute, but it's too big, and half of it is draped over the barbed trees. Gabriel gets the hatch open on the pod, and pulls out a packet of coffee. "Terrans, probably, or Moka," the Karnor claims.
"Good old Moka." Tasha joins Hakeber in trying to recover the chute, but when it looks like it's not going to budge she opts for destruction instead, hooking the line to their vehicle's claw and waving the drivers to pull. She doesn't want to know how the ancient machines respond to litering, and figures being clean might impress them as to their piety.
As the bug-truck yanks and tears the chute towards her, Tasha notes, "We can probably turn the scraps in hammocks, or tents. Ponchos, if it rains."
"Good, because they just sent us food and water," Gabriel notes, pulling out packets. "Dehydrated rations, nothing that needs cooking - except for the coffee. Some like cold brewed coffee, but I like it hot."
"We can use the scraps to make hammock-shelving too, in the bugs. Wrap the containers up and tie them to the internal structure. Won't fall over if the vehicle sways." That idea is a holdover from Sinai, one she first learned very early in life in stowing her things, such as they were, and in the kitchen, such as that was. "We could even leave pieces behind to check our progress, but I think the world would just eat them."
"Beds that stay steady is fine by me," Hakeber says.
"You'll love them, I gr--" Tasha stops that thought; no need to admit having grown up sleeping on primitive furniture infront of outsiders. Instead she turns away, surveys how things are proceeding, then nods. "Once the supplies are packed up and the parachute stored, I think we're good to get going!"
"Tying strips to the trees could work," Gabriel notes. "Will also let us now if the planet absorbs foreign matter." The supplies are in convenient backpacks. "May as well load up again."
Tall trees are a blessing, in that there aren't any low branches to knock Tasha from her makeshift riding harness atop the lead bug. Going straight is an issue, since the forest isn't laid out in convenient avenues. It's monotonous.. until Tasha thinks she sees movement ahead. Before she can focus on the spot, it's gone. It looked like something moving behind a tree.
Tasha frowns at this. While she can't be certain it's not just her imagination making up danger to keep her from the greater danger of teenage boredom, she can't take that risk either. She thumps on top of the bug three times, then yells down, "I think I saw movement behind the trees, 30 degrees left of forward, uh, maybe a sixth of a mile." She turns and yells the same to the following bug, without the pause to think this time.
Farfle sticks his head out of the cockpit to ask, "Do we go towards it or away from it?"
"Uhh, well, if it's a creature on foot or hoof or what-ever, we're not going fast enough to arc around it and anything that's out here is because the world either wants it here or is ignoring it, and the former sounds more likely than the latter. If we try to circle around it, I think more will show up. If it just follows us, it'll be able to intercept us along our flank as we move in an arc to avoid it and we might not see it at all. Either way if it wants to ambush it probably can. We should order anyone who isn't busy to keep a lookout and ready weapons. I'm coming inside." And so Tasha untangles herself, working her way down as she talks.
"We don't actually have weapons, other than knives," Farfle reminds. Yue frowns. "I don't sense anyone, but I may not be close enough."
"They're better than nothing. My people have swords and other light weapons, no ranged weapons." Tasha slips inside, patting her sword's hilt and then turns to nod to Yue. "It may be made of the same material as everything else. It could be one of the tests. We'll know soon."
A minute later and they've reached the tree Tasha saw the figure vanish behind. There's nothing there, or any tracks.
This makes Tasha's frown only deepen. She hadn't expected tracks, of course, the planet would have gobbled them up long before. Nor had she expected the creature itself, as having it simply be sitting there didn't pose much of a challenge, unless it was of the meet the natives, answer questions kind, which she could have handled more directly. So instead she eyes the tree itself, the ground, the objects nearby. If the creature is part of the world, or can blend, maybe it will move and give itself away. Maybe it set a trap for her up top -- and if it set a trap enough to stop a vehicle, then that's a whole new level of problem.
"Still not feeling anyone," Yue admits. "No active psionics either, so we aren't being messed with. Unless this is the reply to our 'which direction' request from the beach."
"Well, um, either way we're going straight past it. We can try angling thirty degrees and see where it leads us," Tasha notes, running a hand through her hair. It is no longer Liza-nice, and hasn't been for many days. "Driver? Angle thirty off forward, left, and signal the rear, please."
After remounting, the small caravan continues forward. Nothing else jumps at Tasha for the next hour, until they come to an actual clearing. It's nearly a hundred meters across, and flat. The bug stops before leaving the trees though. "Camp site?" Farfle calls up to Tasha.
"It's kind of convienent, but maybe that's the point. Or that's the point." Tasha finds this world comes with a great deal of second guessing, emphasis guessing, but at length decides they may as well play along. There is, she thinks, a possibility the pilgrimage was entirely safe. "Alright, lets set up camp."
The bugs 'circle the wagons' and the Eeee take some time to check on the bio-stasis pods on their tails. Gabriel unpacks the tents.
Nessus takes a folding shovel, and tries to dig into the ground.
For her part, Tasha takes some time to inspect the land they've set up on. It's certainly very barren, making it unique to her outside of their time camping on the Orpheus. She lifts a hand and points at various places, talking to herself and anyone nearby. "We set up a cooking fire in the center, and maybe smaller fires or torches around the perimeter. We could also tie cords of thin parachute between the trees with scraps, so that anything that tries to enter will make them clatter. Um. What else. A rotating watch."
"We have electric lamps and a hotplate," Gabriel notes, well tuned to translating Tasha's muttering by now. "Setting a perimeter with parachute cord sounds good though. Are you volunteering?"
"May as well! Let me check our position first." The hybrid woman looks around, up at the darkening sky, then down at her hooves. "Yep, we're right where we have been." She grins at Gabriel, then turns towards where she saw the parachute scraps get stored, or rather stuffed. "I'll dig around for bits to make bells out of, then start around the edge of camp. Oh, and I'll carry a lamp in case I get nabbed."
"Take Hakeber with you then, she can scream," Gabriel says. There isn't a lot that can scavenged for noise-making. They don't have metal tins, but they do have tools. And since there isn't any wind to disturb things, dangling forks or spoons (or the ever wondrous sporks) could be tied close together.
Tasha hopes that no one is against eating with their hands or a single spork as she pilfers their eating utensiles, handing them to Hakeber in a hand made parachute-sack before hauling a much larger bundle of shredded parachute out towards the edge of the clearing. "I'll tecah you how to make makeshift cordage and tie some knots, Hake. It'll be fun, you can see what I used to do."
"I didn't know you were into knots and ropes," Hakeber teases, but follows along. From the center of camp, a string of Imperial curses indicate that Nessus was unsuccessful at digging a hole.
This makes Tasha giggle, then giggle more when she remembers Katherine had mentioned something about them to her, or rather whispered them in her ear which had also made her giggle. She leads Hakeber to no edge in particular, simply the one that was closest, and dumps the shreds before sitting down. "Your job is to keep an eye out in the forest. Here's the lantern, hook it to your belt. When I get tired I'll tecah you how to do this, and we can swap."
"Well, I can tell you that the shadows cast by the trees are very sinister," Hakeber notes. "I hope there aren't any special rituals we're supposed to do at night."
"Not knowing those would be a failure of our archaeological and research department. I'd have to submit a complaint. Oh, one to the world too, for not stating the requirements. We're civilized Galactics, after all." The cordage preperation isn't anything too complex, mostly involving twisting the shreds for strength and either adding knots to keep them from unfurling or tying knots to other scraps to create extended pieces. In between eating utensiles are hung, two different types, by little scraps. "So how are you enjoying your first alien world? Does it beat hanging around Knight bases?"
"I thought we were barbarians from beyond Galactic civilization?" Hakeber says. "I'm not sure what to think of this place yet. It doesn't seem like a real world though, despite being alien. There's no scent to it. Or anything else. I can't say that I like it, and I hope we get to see some real live worlds at some point."
"There are a lot of these. Strange worlds, I mean." Tasha lifts a fork and twirls it in a circle airily, indicating the place. "There were countless previous civilizations and they left much of what they had behind. On top of that there are things other than worlds, like universe and dimensions, but mainly I mean space stations and other large artificial satelites. We'll probably see a lot of all of those."
It takes some time, but Tasha creates a sizable pile of ropes and clangers, as she calls them, so many she stops making more to keep them from tangling up and becoming unmanageable. She leaves the remainder on the ground, then carries the finished product to a nearby tree and begins the work of attachment. "This'll probably take a few hours."
"You've never put up party streamer decorations, have you," Hakeber observes. The camp is beginning to take shape more, since everyone that's awake is working on it now. The Eeee and Celestial tents seem strange though.
"I want to tie them on so that if you try to remove them it'll make noise, too. If I just drape them you could remove them if you're careful enough." And as it happens, Tasha also knows the way to pull the knots so they come apart easily. She's hoping that the aliens may not. "And I want total coverage, remember Hake people have died here. I know I tell a lot of jokes and maybe don't seem to take things seriosuly, but I do."
"Won't these work best if there's no light?" Hakeber asks. "Should we keep the camp dark?"
"No, if they manage to get around them or something they'll be able to reach us without warning, that'd be worse. It's mostly, ummmm ... " Tasha straightens from where she had been tying a knot to a tree, a good ten trees down from where they had started. "It's about layers, is what I was taught by Gabriel and your people. Others. Um. If one fails, have another. If we blind ourselves we trade one way of detection for making another one slightly better in theory. If we don't, then wehave two ways to detect intruders. Also if we turn off the lights, on the Eeee will be able to tell what intruded without swinging lights around, maybe blinding everyone."
"So.. for the watches, do we turn the lights off when the Eeee are watching?" Hakeber asks, and then furrows her brow. "For that matter, what can the bug trucks detect on their own? And Dr. Broom could sit up in one of the trees too.."
"I don't want anyone on the edges." Tasha moves on to the next tree, quickening her pace as night approaches. "I'll talk to the drivers later, but the bugs can be layer three. We'll leave the lights on so everyone can see. If anything comes at us, we'll see it unless it comes from straight up or beneath the ground; maybe the bugs can detect ground movement."
"But the ground moves by itself," Hakeber worries. "If the planet wanted to hurt us, we'd be hurt already, though. How can anything else live out here?"
"Except machines," the Karnor adds quietly.
Tasha nods solemnly to Hakeber's observation. She holds up a finger to indicate Hakeber to wait a moment, does something tricky with an awkward limb, her teeth, and a stretche of cord and then steps away and towards the next tree. "If you, Yue, and the others are right, it's not that the planet can smush us, because it can, it's about challenges and tests. There are rules and limits, um, probably. We don't know what they are, but it does, and I don't think it's going to violate them randomly. Whatever it might send at us, they'll have limits imposed by the world. The military forces seemed to push the world past its 'don't wreck up the landscape or redecorate a lot' rule, so it attacked, but we're avoiding that and keeping things low-tech."
"But we don't know the rules of the trip," Hakeber continues. "If there are any. It seems to have brought us to this spot. It doesn't make a lot of sense though. There's nothing to defend against, no bad weather, no reason not to just rest under the trees. So I have to feel that this isn't a campsite for the normal reasons you'd have a campsite."
"Unless it's trying to make us feel that we need a safe campsite?" the Karnor suggests next, looking again at Tasha's precautions.
Tasha chuckles as she works. When she finishes up the tree she's working on, she steps back and spreads her hands. "You're a scholar of the Progenitors, Hake-bear, you know how this goes. Do your best, gather all the information you can, make your best guess. Maybe if you're lucky you're wrong half the time. This," she points at her handiwork, " ... is taking practical precaution. It may or may not be useful, but not doing it would be to bank on things being very safe. I've learned to try and hedge my guesses, but, uh, well ... " Her hands spread again, indicating everything. "I never know, and probably miss things. Same with gods."
"So.. this could be a test to see how trusting we are," Hakeber says. She doesn't seem about to suggest that they should act more trusting though.
"We're going to meet a 'wizard' who can tell us how to be 'gods'," Tasha notes, moving on to the next tree. "Maybe they're evaluating us, or, I don't know, maybe they're thinking, "what style of god do these weird aliens want to be," or weighing if we're worthy. Maybe we're supposed to really think about godhood, which I guess is what we're dong right now, in a way. Think about why we came. Think about what we leave behind, all this nature. Basics. I don't know."
"Neither do I," Hakeber admits, wagging her tail slowly and watching the forest. "I'm not used to this sort of thinking. It was never this hard to figure out what my professors wanted!"
"Gods and beings near them are like ... " Tasha pauses, straining to recall ehr brief time as a college student at the Citadel. "They're like ... Professors who don't give you a syllabus, expect you to make it, to find them, then to figure out what the class is about or make up your own class, except if you're wrong the usually won't tell you except to say they're not your professor and there is no class. Um. They might help you, or you may realize your class is really a job and the professor is really some other professor." The young woman coughs. "It's, um ... Next tree." She moves on.
By the time the alarm system is done (there are a lot of trees around the clearing) the stars are out and the camp lights are on. There's coffee, and more of the handmeals - it was decided to use up what they had first before resorting to the dehydrated rations. The bugs were put into sleep mode - so whatever senses they might have, they weren't available - and a watch rotation was set up.
Gabriel offers Tasha a cup of coffee. "No cream or sugar I'm afraid," he notes, but grins. He's in his element, even if the environment is an artificial one.
Tasha responds by scootches closer, leaning against Gabriel's side as if he were a gigantic and adventerous wolf pillow. She accepts the coffee, cradling it in both hands, body angles to peer out in to the darkness. "If only we could order coffee and cream in Galactix Six." Her head shakes. "Well, it's almost like when we met, right? We might as well enjoy it as much as we can, and there's still a ways left to go."