Nimisha's Ship

"I think it's amazing we've located any of them, considering the odds."

"True. I'm just overwhelmingly glad you found… me." His eyes sparkled.

"Later; we'd best do what we came for… for a while, at least."

To their astonishment, they found evidence from space of some sort of discernible ruins at the confluence of two rivers that meandered through the flat plains of one of the smaller continents.

Once Helm had checked the immediate vicinity for possible dangers, they kitted themselves out for on-site exploration. They found a rusted shuttle of such an awkward design that Nimisha wondered that it had landed at all, its exterior eroded by time and weather.

"Acid rain?" Nimisha guessed, putting her gloved hand on some of the pitting.

"Perhaps. They do seem to have built some sort of a settlement," he said.

"And a cemetery," she said, noticing eight stone markers. Time and weather had obliterated the shallow carvings of names and dates.

"I'd guess some element of the First Diaspora," Jon said, squatting down and running an index finger across the indistinct legend. He rose and, silently, they walked over to what was left of stone walls. They stepped over them into a compound with the ruins of several small dwellings. Splinters of wood, protected by insertion in the stones, proved that the unknown builders had acquired wood from some other place, since there was none on the broad plains.

"They didn't go in much for mixed crews at first, did they?" she asked.

Jon shook his head, digging his toe into the dirt clogging the remains of a hearth. When the metal tip of his boot hit something, he used a trowel to uncover the corroded remains of a pan.

"The deceased had no survivors," she murmured, unconsciously stroking her still-flat abdomen.

"Life-forms are approaching cautiously through the vegetation," Helm said. "Some are large enough to be dangerous."

"Let's not take unnecessary risks right now," Jon said, taking her arm.

They ran back to the Fiver and were safely within it when the creatures could be seen on the main screen.

"Carnivorous, to judge by the shape of their muzzles and protruding fangs," Helm reported. "And large enough to suggest the reason the compound was wailed."

"Well, let's see what else this planet offers prospective settlers," Jon said, shedding the protective gear.

"Thirsty work," Nimisha said, ordering beverages for both of them from Cater while Helm lifted.

Careful quartering of the planet showed no further remains of interest.

"And it's boring, geologically speaking," was Nimisha's complaint. "Normal plains, old mountains, wide rivers, three oceans, and a dozen seas."

"Some rather unnice indigenous specimens, six-legged, too," Jon said. "More extendibles to capture us and teeth to eat us with. Also, there doesn't really seem to be much in the way of easily obtainable metal and mineral resources. Deep pit mining would be necessary, and we will need metals when the freighter's cargo is used up. As it will, the way the Sh'im proliferate." He gave her hair an affectionate ruffling, which she liked, though she hadn't expected to. "While we will try our best. I don't think humans are given to litters as the Sh'im are."

"Well, it's a good place to have to fall back on. Or give the Sh'im in a few generations. Though this primary's a lot brighter than Erehwon's."

"Oh, you'd noticed that about their eyesight, too," Jon remarked.

"I didn't. Doc did," Nimisha said. "The Sh'im optical equipment is not happy with bright sunlight. Their home-world sun must be much dimmer. Maybe the real impetus for them to colonise is that their sun's old and dying."

"At first I considered it possible that they habitually required a midday rest," Doc said. He had had his own reports to make of the two planets they had investigated, but he granted them the courtesy of silence unless they asked him a direct question. "Then I noticed that their eye slits become narrower as the Erehwon sun nears zenith. Their eye slits are wider at night, and I don't think it has that much to do with their night vision, which is better than that of you humans. I've compared their optical equipment with that of other minor species available on data file. I suspect that you're right, Nimisha. They originate on a world with a dimmer sun, an older world."

"Would tinted lenses help, Doc?" Nimisha asked.

"I would suggest it, though the problem seems to affect the younger ones more than the darker-coated elders. Perhaps the pigment alters with age, and their sensitivity to harsh sunlight is reduced."

"Put wraparound sunglasses on your list of things to do," Jon said.