Buck busied himself around the ship and their landing area. He had wanted to go with Wilma, but she insisted on going alone. He didn't know this Hart guy and the two of them together would attract a lot more attention. He didn't like it, but he understood. Once he had picked up the blankets and shaken them out, he returned them to the ship. Hopefully, Wilma would return either with Hart in tow, or at least with a message for the sister. He realized that the fire had gone out. Since it was chilly, he decided to light a new one. He gathered some small and medium logs that were scattered around and carried them over by the ship. After he set up his logs, he tried to get the fire going with a flint. But no matter how many sparks he created the wood just would not catch.
"It's the oxygen levels in the morning that make it hard to light."
Buck whirled around to see a man standing at the edge of the clearing holding a canister of some type. He was older, and a little shorter than Buck, but much thinner and was dressed in rough clothes.
"This planet's oxygen levels drop in the morning, so it makes lighting fires a lot more difficult." The man said quietly with a slight smile. "You can either wait until the afternoon and try again, or I can help with this." At this point, the man lifted the top of the canister and reveled a small fire.
"Thank you, that's nice of you" said Buck as he relaxed slightly. He was still wary of this stranger.
The man brought the canister with the fire over to where Buck had built his and added it to the logs. Soon the flames had taken hold and there was a sizable blaze.
"Well, that worked, I will have to be careful not to let it go out."
"You are very welcome young man" replied the stranger.
"My name is Buck Rodgers, and my friend is Wilma Deering, we are from New Chicago on earth. And if you excuse my surprise, we thought that the only inhabitants of this moon were in the Vane Colony over there."
"My name is Carson, and I am of the Star people. Our ancestors came here many generations ago. They left earth, I understand, just before the holocaust that devastated earth. They eventually settled here and so we have lived here quietly for generations." Said Carson.
"That explains why your group were not listed as being here, I think all of the records were destroyed."
"Yes, any record of our people would unfortunately have been lost. "Replied Carson. "I don't see much food here; our people don't have a lot, but we will be happy to share with you what we have."
"No worries there, we have plenty of food disks" Buck told him as he grabbed the bag of disks and held them up.
"Food disks?" Carson asked.
"Yea disks made out of nutritional stuff, just a couple of these 3 times a day." Replied Buck. He took a disk out of the bag and handed it to Carson who broke off a small portion and tasted it. The face he made caused Buck to chuckle.
"Yea I don't like the taste either."
Carson carefully placed the rest of the disk in a pocket in the side of his garment. "The taste is unusual, but I will take this back to share with others in our group." He told Buck.
Something told Buck that the members of the group were hungry as well. "Here, take the rest of these then, we have enough to last two of us. Hopefully, we won't be here too much longer" Buck said as he handed the other man his bag of disks. After some hesitation, Carson said "Thank you. If you are sure that you have sufficient numbers for you and your companion my friends will be grateful. But tell me what has brought you to this place?"
"Wilma and I are looking for someone who is in the Vane Colony" Buck told him. He immediately noticed a change in Carson's demeanor.
"Oh, I see." Said Carson. And he turned to leave.
"We don't really know anything about the colony, we are just here at the request of a relative. Maybe you could tell me about the colony" Buck said.
"I am not sure you would enjoy or even believe our story. The people of the colony are terrains like you." Replied Carson.
"Try me," said Buck.
After a moment of hesitation Carson spoke. "We had been living here for many generations, we are simple people and we had everything we needed. Then one day the people of the Vane colony arrived. They were woefully under-prepared for the new life they seemed to want. They had food supplies but not enough to last them very long. The tools they brought to work the land were very inadequate, and most of them did not understand how to produce food. When they first arrived, my friends and I helped them as much as we could, we taught them how to grow food, and complete shelter. But soon, they were not looking for assistance but wanted us to do all of the work for them, then they began to take over our land and homes. Soon they had pushed us all out of our own settlement and forced us outside what they now called their settlement. They put up an electrical fence to keep us out.'
Buck was quiet for a moment, "Do they have weapons?" he asked.
"They have some, though I could not tell you how many, they have more than we do as we have none." Carson replied. After a pause he added "not all of our people were expelled, they kept some they said to help but I know they are slaves."