They returned to the camp with arms full of dead branches that they added to a large pile that had been collected over the course of the day. Joe had asked Sarah several times but she had refused to elaborate.
Next to the pile of wood others had set up a mobile cooking station with a large pot on top. Two of the crewmen had started to chop ingredients on a foldable table nearby that where then added to the pot.
Sarah joined some of the others who started to pile up some of the dead wood on a smaller pile surrounded by rocks, the center had been dug out a bit to form a shallow pit. Joe was still puzzled by this, so she approached one of the crewman who was busy stacking the wood in what appeared to be a specific order.
"Excuse me, what are you doing, crewman?" She casually asked him.
"Hm?" he distractedly asked, turning to her.
"Sorry, you're our helmsman, right? Born and raised in space?" he asked her
"That's right, what has that to do with this?" she asked pointing at the piles of dead wood.
"We're building a fire, simple as that." he answered with a grim and refused to elaborate.
Joe was now more confused then before. How do you build a fire? And why would anyone want to do that? Fire was dangerous. Especially in a enclosed environment like a starship with a limited supply of oxygen. A fire on a ship could easily be one of the most dangerous things to happen if not handled properly and fast enough.
Before she could inquire further she got distracted by a group of the expedition that just returned from the forest, carrying several of the as yet unknown animals with them. She watched as they put them in an empty pit. She still had difficulty distinguishing between the different animals, they looked very much alike to her. She watched as one of the animals was picked up and carried behind the lab-tent.
She was distracted by the smell of smoke. Alerted she turned towards the source of it only to find a thin column of smoke reaching straight up for the sky. She started to rush towards it but found her path blocked by several crewman who acted strangely relaxed.
She started to press through the crewmen when a slender hand on her shoulder stopped her. It was Sarah.
"Relax, there is no danger. This is an ancient human tradition called a campfire." She explained.
"Campfire? I have read about those." Joe answered.
"Good. Try to relax, you'll see it can be quite relaxing."
Joe allowed herself to be walked to the side of the fire where several large logs had been placed in a rough circle around it. Sitting down she observed the crewman expertly feeding the fire. She was still a bit nervous, but as everybody around her was acting calm and relaxed Joe slowly calmed down as well.
Surprisingly fast the fire was sprouting crackling flames half a meter high and Joe was becoming mesmerized by them. She barely noticed the fire burning down, leaving hot red coals behind.
Two crewman approached the fire pit and set up two poles directly opposite to each other. Each was Y-shaped at the top, which must have taken quite some time to find.
They returned after a moment with another branch that had something large and wet stuck to it.
To Joe's horror she recognized the mass of one of the animals that had been brought back to camp earlier. It had obviously been slaughtered and at least skinned before being impaled on the long branch.
They set it on top of the other two branches which placed the carcass over the middle of the hot coals. Joe was fascinated as the carcass started to slowly rotate. Without her noticing someone had attached a small device on one end of the upper branch that included a small motor.
Joe watched in horror and fascination as slowly the carcass turned from being a horrific mass into something that she recognized as grilled meat. As the temperature of the meat increased fat started to drop on the coals leaving a surprisingly pleasant aroma in the air.
Joe had been so transfixed on the slowly cooking animal that she had not realized that the day had turned into night already.
She was startled as more wood was added to the coals shortly engulfing the whole place in smoke before again bursting into flames.
The branch with the now cooked meat was removed along with the two poles.
After a while Sarah come to her carrying two plates. She handed her one and sat down next to Joe. She passed her some utensils and started to dig into her plate of food.
Joe eyed her own serving suspiciously. It looked good, it smelled delicious. Much better than the food served back on the Hermes. The main course was some sort of stew, she decided to probe it with her spoon. Several bits of vegetables and meat floated to the surface, giving it a rich color and texture. She decided to give it a try. The meat was savory. It was rich in taste, the texture soft, almost rubbery. Only the temperature slowed her down as she devoured her meal.
"I take it that you like it?" Sarah managed to ask between bites.
"This is amazing. Is this what real meat tastes like?" Joe managed to answer between spoonfuls of stew.
Sarah finished her meal and set her utensils aside.
"This kind of meat is something I've never tasted before. Amazing enough, it is not only fit for human consumption, it is no worse than beef or pork. It has lower fat but is rich in nutrients and protein. It's no full diet for humans, but neither is beef, pork or any other meat on earth." Sarah explained.
"And the vegetables?" Joe asked.
"They're low on fiber, this just doesn't seem to be a thing in this ecosphere. Otherwise they're perfectly safe to eat and even healthy. You just need to add some fiber and you have a full diet. We're already considering to take on a supply of it back to the ship to add to our supplies."
"Amazing. I've never heard of flora and fauna that is that compatible with humans."
"Yes. This planet is a prime candidate for colonization. Amazing. Finding so many worlds that are habitable for humans and even that good."
"It's just a question what the locals think about new neighbors moving in. We haven't had a chance to ask them yet." Joe responded.
"I don't think that is a concern. They're on a different continent, with their level of technology they should not even be aware of existence of this continent." Sarah answered.
Joe thought about this for a while. For a long time in the past humans had been limited to Earth. Way back they had not even be aware of some of the continents existing. America and Australia had to be discovered first. They had indigenous populations of primitive humans. They stood no chance facing eager European explorers. Would history repeat itself on this world?
Before she could think a lot on this she was interrupted by the sound of a guitar being plucked. Someone had brought one down with them and was gearing up to give a little song.
It took only a couple of minutes and the whole camp was gathered around the fire sharing songs and stories.
Joe woke up to the peaceful sounds of a forest. No sounds you'd find anywhere on Earth, but still distinct from the regulated environment on a star ship, there's rarely wind on a star ship.
It only took her a moment to shake her confusion as she noticed the sound of hushed voices of the other members of the camp. She woke up quickly as she noticed the stressed tone of the conversation.
She exited her tent only to find a small crowd at the side of the camp. As she approached she noticed the prone form of a human at the center of the crowd. She hurried to the prone form, rushing around the crew in the way. She stopped cold when she realized who the collapsed crewman was.
Pet'l looked paler than usual. Somehow this emphasized his elvish features even more.
"What happened?" Joe asked.
A crewman crouched next to Pet'l looked up. "No idea, mam. I just found him like that when I checked the perimeter this morning."
Joe looked around stressed, she did not see any of the scientists in the gathered crowd. She picked out a crewman and addressed her. "You, go and wake up all the scientists you can find." The young woman nodded and ran off.
Joe then picked two others. "Both of you, go and check on everybody else. Report back if anyone is missing or unconscious." They also nodded and split off.
With that addressed Joe checked on Pet'l. She knelled down next to him and addressed the crewman tending to him. "What's his status?"
"I do have a pulse and he's breathing. He is not reacting to any stimulus. I can't wake him." She answered her in a distressed way.
"Alright. You did fine, don't worry." She tried to reassure her, noticing her still distressed look, Joe placed her hand on her shoulder. That seemed to calm the even younger woman down.
They where interrupted with the scientists arriving at full speed.
A flutter of questions was stemmed by Joe as she tried to coordinate the efforts. The scientists quickly took charge, pulling out scanners and getting to work.
They obviously knew a lot better what to do than Joe, so she took a step back and let them work.
"Alright everyone. Let's give them some room. You all have things to do, get to them." She commanded the still gathered crew-people.
Some where still gawking.
"People, some privacy please."
They two last stragglers turned red and went on their way.
Joe turned to the gathered scientists that where frantically working on Pet'l. "What's wrong with him?"
They looked at each other, trying to decide who should talk. Finally they agreed on someone. The woman turned to Joe.
"He appears to be stable. That much we can gather. Otherwise he appears to be in a coma. No idea what caused it. We need more detailed scans."
"Can we do that here or do we have to evacuate him to the ship?" Joe asked.
"Our equipment here should suffice for now, we need to move him to the lab."
"Alright, I'll take care of moving him, get the lab ready." Joe answered.
Joe called some of the crewmen over and ordered them to get a gurney from the pod. They ran off and quickly returned with the gurney. They quickly assembled it on both sides of the prone Pet'l. With the help of several people they managed to stabilize Pet'l and slide the gurney under him. It clicked into place securely. Both of them carefully lifted the gurney and carried it towards the lab-tent carefully.
As they passed the entrance to the tent the other scientists swept the last things off the central lab-table. Just as they cleared the table they reached the table and slid the gurney on it.
As the crewmen stepped back the scientists got busy setting up the scanners. Data began scrolling on the monitors as probes where attached to the unresponsive Pet'l.
Joe knew that asking questions now would not help at all, so she took a step back out of the tent. She turned towards the pod to contact Hermes to update them on the situation.
As she approached the pod she was intercepted by one of the crewman she'd sent to check on the rest of the camp.
"Mam, everyone that is in the camp is fine. We do have on missing though."
Joe was not looking forward to this report.
"Understood Ensign, we'll check with the doc and come back to you." Smykes voice was cut off as he closed the channel.
Joe leaned back in the pilot's seat of the pod, closed her eyes and tried to think logically. The other camp had already checked in back with the Hermes, everything was normal back there. What was the difference? Not an easy answer as Pet'l was the only member of the whole crew who was not human. On top of that animal and plant life differed between the two continents. As she was not getting anywhere on her own she headed back to the lab to check in.
As she entered the tent the scientist where spread out working on their individual workstations. Pet'l was lying on the central table, having several monitors and probes hooked up. Data was scrolling on monitors, ignored by the present crew. As nobody acknowledged Joe's presence she cleared her throat loudly.
"Yes?" on of the scientists asked without looking up from his work.
"Is there any news about his condition? What's wrong with him?" Joe asked.
The scientist stopped for a moment as if to gather his thoughts. "We have not found anything wrong with him so far. One of the problems is that we know so little about his species that we don't really know where to start. We're currently trying to isolate the components in his bloodstream to see if we find anything that is native to this planet. It would help if we could check the others here as well."
"Sure, what do you need?" Joe asked.
"A blood sample from everybody that we can analyze." He said, pointing at a folding seat.
"Of course." Joe said and took a seat.
The scientist walked over and gestured her to free up her arm. He expertly disinfected a region of her skin and took a sample. He marked it with Joe's name and put it in a tray.
"All done. If you could send in the others that would be very helpful."
"Of course. Anything else you need?"
"We could use all the help we can get. Can you please check for any personal with medical training?"
"Will do. I don't think it makes a lot of sense to send other people down from the Hermes for now." Joe thought aloud.
"Agreed. We are using our data link to send them everything we have so they can do what they can from orbit. For now that should be all we can do until we narrow this down."
"Understood."
Joe stood up and left the tent to address the crowd that had gathered around the entrance of the tent. The crewman she had sent to check on the rest approached her first.
"Ma'm. We can confirm that everybody in the camp is fine. We do have one personal missing, crewman Jones was last seen last night going to bed in his tent. This morning he was gone with no trace, no sign of struggle, nothing."
"Any of his personal belongings missing?"
"He did not bring any personal belongings aside from the issued standard equipment. That is not in his tent, yes."
"Good, so we have something that we can track."
Joe's scanner was marking their target a hundred meters ahead. The search party she was leading has already traveled more than a kilometer from the camp. Jones would have had no reason to go that far away from the camp by himself, especially as the growth had gotten thicker for several hundred meters and proved increasingly more difficult to travel. The party of four had spread out to cover more ground as Joe led them towards the signal that was emitted by his personal com-unit. They where designed to allow remote activation of a beacon, for exactly this kind of scenario.
The place where to signal was originating from was in a thick and scrub that stretched for several dozens meters and did not allow to see anything inside.
Joe was pondering whether to go around it and check if Jones was on the other side of it or try to find a way inside when she was alerted by a call to her left. As she ran over she noticed the others standing before a more-or-less man-shaped hole in the brush. It looked like Jones had forces his way into it by sheer amount of will. Carefully Joe inspected the edges of the hole. As they had yet to see any kind of thorns there was no blood, only broken foliage that was bend away from the search party, pointing inside the extensive growth.
They looked at each other. Joe just noticed that neither of them had spoken a single word for several minutes as they closed in on Jones' position. Checking her scanner one last time Joe hunched down a bit and pressed carefully through the hole Jones had already made, holding up her hand to protect her face. Her wider shoulders brushed aside the growth with some difficulty, leaving enough room for the others to follow easily.
Pushing through the growth felt almost like being inside a cave. There was little light filtering through to illuminate the different shades of green that made up the walls, the floor and the ceiling. Finally Joe broke through the thick wall of growth on to a clearing that was spotted with large and thick trees that made visibility even worse than before. Her scanner beeped softly, they where getting close, within 20 meters now. With the touch of a button Joe activated an audio signal to further guide them. She motioned the others to stay still as she listened carefully. She managed to make out a faint beeping off from the left of their position. The others nodded, they had also heard it. Again they spread out and carefully approached, guided by the scanner and the ever louder beeping of the com-unit.
Nearing the tree in front of her Joe spotted a hand, clearly visible against the dark forest floor. She alerted the others and hurried towards the fallen crewman. Arriving at the scene she quickly checked his prone form. His breast was slowly raising and falling, he was obviously breathing. She clumsily checked his pulse, finding it weak but steady. Joe stepped back to let the others have a go as they had more extensive first-aid training than her.
While they worked on Jones, Joe looked around for any clues as to what might have drawn Jones here of all places. Using her scanner she carefully checked the surrounding area. At first she noticed nothing special, the longer she tried to make sense of this place the more inviting it appeared to her. Puzzled she addressed the others.
"Is it me or does this place look nicer than it did couple of minutes before?"
The others stopped in their tracks and looked at each other in alarm. Obviously they had noticed the same.
"That's it, put him on the gurney, we need to get out of here." Joe commanded.
The others reluctantly got into motion. What should have been a well practiced move took them way to long as they fumbled with the mechanism of the gurney, no doubt fighting the same mental fog that had started to clog Joe's mind as well.
She tried shaking her head but was unable to clear her mind much. At some point Joe had sat down without even noticing. Just on the farthest corner of her mind she noticed someone tucking on her arm. She couldn't give it any thought, her head empty.
The fog was cleared instantly by a sharp pain in her hand. She jerked it back to find blood on it. Looking up she found a bloodied Jones standing over her with a bloody knife in his hand.
"Get up, we need to move." He said, pulling her to get up.
Joe clambered to her feet and allowed Jones to steer her out of the clearing. After passing the thick green wall Joe collapsed to the ground next to the others. Taking a quick headcount she confirmed that all of them had made it out.
Breathing heavily Jones sat down next to her.
"Thanks for the rescue." he said.
"I was about to say the same." Joe managed to get out between heavy breaths.
"We need to check on the others." Joe weak voice was almost inaudible.
Please keep in mind that I'm neither a professional author nor an English native.
Please leave a review, they help a lot with improving and motivation.
