First Encounter?

This morning the short-range shuttle from Ground Zero station dropped off first Ed, then Dr. Sutherland, then me on Minervan soil. We couldn’t take the Marco Polo into the planet’s atmosphere. Sub-light ships are specially designed for their purpose. They’re built to go fast, and if you ask for anything more complex, like, say, being able to land, or even just functioning in an atmosphere with significant drag, the ship doesn’t do so hot. Well, it blows up, actually. Hence the shuttle.

(Damn, are those things cramped. I mean, I’m not a big person. I’m only about 1.6 meters tall, and I was having a hard time standing upright. Poor Ed’s over two meters. He looked like a toy someone had smooshed into a box after playtime was over.)

The shuttle took a round-about course across the planet. We’ve each been directed to interact and learn from a specific Azu-nah tribe, each in a different environment. Ed was dropped off in an area that seemed to vaguely resemble a rain forest, except it wasn’t really hot at all. Dr. Sutherland is going to be plunked down in a desert. Don’t ask me why the planet scientist guy chose the place with the least plants. Guess desert slim molds are hot stuff.

I’m going to be in an environment that we don’t really have an Earth analogue for. It’s a bit like a prairie or pampas, a bit like a temperate forest, with a little chaparral thrown in the mix. It’s a hilly, sweeping environment with long swatches of grass and short, shrubby plants. There are individual trees that dot the grassy areas every handful of meters, and then there are larger more forest-like patches of large vegetation and trees near rivers and streams. It has distinct wet, dry, and snow seasons. Wacky biome if you ask me.

I’m to meet with the resident clan from this environment. My reference material says they’re called the “D’Keda” clan. I don’t have a clue what that means. Actually, I have so little info on the Azu-nah that it’s almost laughable. Here, this is the detailed species synopses they gave us.



Isn’t that sad? There’s no information! Who cares how tall they are! I want to know what not to say so they won't feed me to the closest carnivorous plant! The species info came with a very little, very basic Azu-nah vocabulary (like, I can say hello, goodbye, yes, no, and “where is the bathroom” and that’s about all). I’ll be lucky if I move past pointing and grunting in the next month. Fortunately the first contact team spent a little time with D’Keda, and left them with .. well.. basically kids learning toys to help them pick up English for the last couple years. Hopefully that’ll help. But those things are basically glorified Speak-and-Spells. I have a feeling there will still be a lot of Me Tarzan, You Jane talk for a while at first.

I spent the afternoon hiking across a high, hilly ridge, looking for them. The clans tend to be semi-nomadic, and range across a home territory. So while I know they’re somewhere in this area, I have no idea exactly where. So I’ve been just kinda wondering and looking for signs, while trying not to step on something that’ll bite me.

Being on an alien world is disconcerting like you would not believe. Have you ever been to another country? Or another part of the world that’s different enough that few or none of the trees, plants, and animals are familiar to you? It can be exciting or frightening, seeing so much exotic stuff. But the trees still look more or less tree-like, and the birds are all pretty easily identifiable as being birds. New bugs can be kinda freaky, but you’ll still always know a spider when you see one.

Minerva is different. If you don’t pay too much attention, it seems very Earth-like at first glance. There’s stuff on the ground that looks more or less like grass. But it isn’t Earth grass. Some of them have tiny nubby fruits on their underside, or little whip structures that flick back and forth in the wind, and some will suddenly twist shut, like a roll of wrapping paper when you get too near. One of the trees I passed today sounded like it was breathing. It had a deep, rhythmic sound, like an enormous bellows, and I know it wasn’t the wind. There are little creatures in the grass that look half bug, half chipmunk, and they make loud clicks like some weird bird. The sky isn’t the bright blue that I’m used to. It has a faint green-ish tint. And the sun is just a little too orange. Even the air is different. It's denser, thick with Argon, but with less oxygen than Earth. There's enough oxygen to support human life, but it's like I spent my whole life living at sea-level only to suddenly move to the Colorado Plateau. Five minutes into the hike and I was wheezing like an asthmatic. Hopefully my lungs will adjust soon and I won't have to use my rebreather. Every single thing I look at reminds me that this is NOT my world, and just how very alien Minerva really is.

I made camp for the night on one of the highest hills around. The sky is mostly blue now that the sun is setting. I think I may be getting close to D’Keda now. I was looking through my binoculars a few minutes ago before settling in for bed. I’d caught movement a few hills away. It was only there for a second, before disappearing behind the hill, but it looked close enough to the species info for me. Perhaps they’re watching me before saying hello? This is what I saw.



I’m calling it my first encounter, anyway, even if they haven’t seen me yet. Tomorrow I see if I can introduce myself.