We land on a beach with (literally) unearthly white sand. Even the rocks are the color of bleached bone. Most are smooth, but there are places where the rock is fractured and sharp, rough to the touch. There’s not much in the way of tree-type growths here. Most of the vegetation is ground-clinging, though xenofungus does occasionally pile up high.
The main feature of the island, other than the cliffs that this side slopes up to the top of, is the wreckage of the colony pod. It occupies much of the space, with the largest chunk embedded up the hillside, close to the top of the cliffs. I find it all rather disorienting to look at, since I’ve perceived all this before through means other than my own eyes. Suddenly I’m confronted with mapping what Chiron showed me to what my Earth senses now experience. No doubt about it, though: this is the island I sensed while meditating on the shores of Garden Bay and the one that Sal drew a picture of.
“All right, well, we should look for signs of people, I think,” I tell the others.
“If there’s something scaring the local wildlife, then we should have our weapons ready, too,” Cleve says. “It might just be machinery, but I don’t know what it takes to really spook a xenodragon.”
“An annoying sound,” I reply. From everything I could tell, nothing was actually hurting Gale. Still, that’s enough to rile Ensign Redd, who is very upset that humans would deny xenodragons their nesting site. She’s got a knife and a pistol, and at Cleve’s suggestion, she draws the gun from its holster. The ranger seems to have no problems with Cleve issuing instructions, but I won’t be surprised if they peel off to do their own thing eventually.
There are no humans out to greet us, but once we really open our eyes, there are certainly plenty of signs of them. Aside from the planetfall debris, there’s washed-up litter. Specifically, a trawler net emblazoned with the logo of Morgan Fishing. It’s got some poor sealife strangled in its plastic webbing. Of course Morgan Industries doesn’t use biodegradable twine like the Stepdaughters of Chiron do. Although it is long dead, I free the creature, which gives me a close-up look at its fins and shimmering scales. It’s not quite an Earth fish, but I can see why that’s the name people have gone with. When I bundle up the empty plastic net, it collapses down small enough to stuff into my satchel. No reason to leave a mess behind that can hurt some other animal.
“Good idea,” Cleve says, noting my actions. “Reuse, recycle. I’m sure the mariners can use it.” He considers a moment longer. “Or maybe we can make traps with it.”
While I’ve been picking up litter, the others have found footprints from a small group of people as well as the remains of a recent campfire. The tracks lead up the hill toward the colony pods, the trampled vegetation creating a path visible to the eye once pointed out.
So, there are definitely people here, but who are we dealing with? When Marina told us about fighting at sea between the Stepdaughters and Morgan, she mentioned that a Morgan boat had sunk but with no casualties. There’ve been more recent skirmishes than that, though, which Xiao told us about. “We could be dealing with castaways from a Morgan fishing vessel,” I posit.
“Or people could be trying to dig their way to the pods,” Cleve says. “Took ‘em thirty years to get the machinery up and running!” He glances over his shoulder, a concerned look on his face. There’s nothing directly behind him—oh, Bella is there. I guess the noise doesn’t bother shimmerflies as much as it does xenodragons. She’s tugging at his jacket with her small legs, and Cleve reorients himself to face that direction. “This way,” he announces, starting to trudge uphill toward the largest piece of colony pod wreckage.
Picking back up the earlier topic, I say, “If we’re about to encounter Morgan castaways, we need to not start a fight.” I look pointedly at Redd, whose pistol is out in a two-hand grip. She frowns, still upset about the noise and litter. “We need to talk with them to find out what they’re doing and anything else going on here,” I elaborate. If they were lost at sea long enough ago, they might not know about the Planetary Security Force currently marching on the Stepdaughters of Chiron. Or even if they do, they might not care. They could be after profit for their own part of the company. Or maybe they’d be appreciative of a rescue and don’t care for dome life.
“But if they’re hurting the local wildlife, is it not our duty to stop them?” she challenges me.
Sure, I can agree to that. “But not by attacking them right away,” I insist.
“So what do you propose?”
“Talk.” Why is it so hard for some people to lead with conversation?
“Do you want me to sneak into position—”
¡Ay! This is Corazon all over again! I look pleadingly at Cleve, and he intervenes with a clear order. “Hold fire unless I say so,” he tells Redd. So concise. So much simpler than listing out all the parameters of when to shoot or when not to. This is why Cleve is Datajack Prime; he gets things done.
“Yes, sir!” Redd salutes. “I will hold fire until your notice. Yours or the Ch—Yours or Mr. Thorne’s.”
“Please do not call me that,” I tell her. “Mr. Thorne” is a face I put on to give presentations to rooms of prospective clients—or, worse, the father who pretty much just gave me half my DNA and a surname. I adopt a firmer tone, more like Cleve’s, and I dispense with the niceties. “Call me Mariah,” I order.
Redd salutes again. “Yes, M-mariah.” The way she lingers on the initial consonant, she must really have to struggle to address me by my first name. Well, too bad for her. That’s my name, and I’m going to insist people use it.