On The Origin of Xe

A Surprising Discovery

Chapter Ten

It's been about six months since the astronauts have landed on and made Goldilocks-P3 their home. After arriving in what appeared to be winter, they were well on their way to their first summer. This will be their first test on how well they understand the seasons here, since the planet revolves around two stars. So far it has been as they expected. Spring followed winter and now summer should be following spring. All indications, at least by the length of daylight and warmth of the day, are that this is so. What will be interesting is when fall follows summer, only to have summer return once again as the planet transitions from the first star to the second.

The main concern of the astronauts is how all of this will affect their crops? Ever since they started growing their vegetables in fields surrounding the habitat they have been quite happy with the results. Starting with a very limited garden of winter vegetables, and now with a more substantial summer crop. Those food sources, as well as the natural food sources growing wild nearby, have added considerably to their ability to thrive. To their ability to support a growing population once the newborns arrive.

Weather-wise, they have not had to put up with any adverse conditions. They did receive some light snow early on, but at their location it didn't last long. Obviously, there must be greater snow going on at higher elevations. Helping to feed the river that flowed nearby and down into the Great Divide. Occasionally, the skies would cloud over and some precipitation would fall. It was actually quite comforting, as it was another reminder of being on Earth. As far as they could tell, a fairly typical weather pattern. Good for the gardens. Good for them.

The supply of food is of utmost importance to keeping the astronauts alive on Goldilocks-P3. It was estimated that each of the five human astronauts would require three to five pounds of food per day. Of course that all depends on the caloric intake required for body size and how much energy one expends. It is amazing how by adding just a few tilled gardens to the recipe, they were able to create a sustainable environment that not only provided them with food, but generated oxygen and purified the air.

Andre and Xe were continuing to work on their atom interferometer. They were making good progress in figuring out the logistics of how all of it was going to work. One of the things they needed to do was to make a visit back to the Great Divide, head down the canyon, and return to the spot by the river where the arrows were etched in stone. This for the purpose of providing the growing list of numbers that were needed in order to triangulate the coordinates with Annihilation.

On the way past the tilled gardens, they were stopped by a couple of the workers who seemed quite perplexed. They explained to Xe and Andre that things did not quite appear, well, normal. Things were different today. Certainly, not like they had left them the previous night. Before going back to the habitat. Xe and Andre assumed that they must be talking about tools being misplaced or gates left ajar. They replied that maybe someone had come earlier in the morning or later that night and moved things around as they made their way. This did not seem to appease the two workers. They were talking about something more serious than one's tools being moved. They reiterated that, somethings was amiss.

That being the case, Xe and Andre accompanied the two workers back to the field. They walked the rows together to see what they had seen. At one point, Xe bent down to get a closer look at one of the plants. Andre was encouraged to scan the rows of the field looking for anything odd or out of place. At first glance Andre didn't really notice anything special. On second glance, he noticed that a number of the rows appeared to have plants missing. There were vacant spots where, according to the workers, there were plants the night before.

Xe stood up and seemed equally concerned. The plant she was looking at appeared to have had its leaves chewed on. Apparently eaten by some thing or some one. As they walked down the rows, there was further evidence of the plants becoming someone's meal. The very odd thing was that only some of the plants had been eaten. Only some had been removed from the ground. Overall, the field was still in pretty good condition. It was almost as if it was intentional. To give the illusion that all was still OK.

As they made their way back to Simplicity not much was said. They were all quietly trying to figure out what could have caused such a thing. As they filed into the common area of the main habitat they prepared an announcement for a meeting. All parties were to assemble in the common area as soon as possible for a discussion of what had just transpired.

The meeting started off with a thorough description of what had been seen. Xe and the others reassured everyone that there was no real threat to the food supply. But there was definitely something going on that needed to be addressed. They needed to figure out what had been eating the plants before it did become something more serious.

The meeting was opened up for questions. The others were encouraged to share any of their ideas. Xe was one of the first ones to speak up. She noted that early on, even before they had touched down on Goldilocks-P3, there was an eerie feeling of there being something missing. On such a beautiful and, apparently, bountiful planet there did not seem to be any signs of life. Other than plant life. Gliding over the surface trying to figure out the best place to land, allowed the androids to see plenty of plants and water. But still, no other forms of animal life. Once on the ground, Xe still experienced that feeling of something missing. Everything pointed to the fact that there should be other forms of life around. Some kind of animal life. Forms of life that could take advantage of all the lushness that surrounded them.

As Xe spoke, the rest of the team also started to wonder. Where was everybody? Where were the animals? Xe and Andre soon realized that Xe's talk had kind of stirred everyone up. They needed to bring the conversation back into focus. They needed to get everyone thinking like scientists again. The first order of business became finding more evidence with which to make an intelligent and scientific assessment.

As such, a couple of different teams were assembled. One, to go back out into the gardens to gather more information. The other, to spread out more into the surrounding areas to discover if anything else had been disturbed. What were they looking for? Anything, really. Anything that might provide a clue as to what or who it was that was eating the plants. Were there specific plants that were being eaten while others were ignored? Were there any tracks left behind? Tracks that might have led their way into the gardens from on the ground? From the air? If they were extremely lucky, was there any evidence left behind? Such as droppings or, perhaps, a deceased body or two.

Later that evening they all gathered round once again to announce their findings. To their surprise, the group sent out to explore the outer areas of trees and bush, many with fruit to be had, announced that these areas too had evidence of being chewed on. In a way, harvested. There appeared to be no preference for any one type of plant over another. There were no tracks that could be identified. It was as if, something had just appeared out of thin air.

All they had to go on was that something was eating the food supply. Without any further evidence to go on, they needed to come up with some. The conclusion was that they needed to come up with a sighting. A visual of whatever it was that was doing the munching. That was certainly something doable. They had plenty of cameras around that could be set up to to witness such an event. Cameras that could be set up to not only survey the scene during the day, but also capture any nighttime activity occurring under the cover of darkness.

That being decided, the next day they went to work assembling and installing the cameras in all appropriate locations. Cameras were set up in the gardens and in a few locations further out in the wild. Hopefully, to catch a thief. The assumption being that whatever it was, it would return the next day. And, hopefully, the following days until they could figure what it was.

It wasn't until the next morning that they were ready to turn everything on. They all crammed into the video control room to catch the first images coming across the screen. Everything was normal. During the course of the day, they gradually began to disperse. Disappointed that nothing was happening. The feeling being that if something did happen, it would be captured on the recording they could view later. But as daylight ended, there was still nothing there.

That first night was spent by all in high anticipation of capturing some kind of image. In the morning, when they all reassembled, they were finally rewarded. The images were not exactly the best, due to the extreme low light conditions. But there was definitely something there. Something had matter-of-factually made an appearance. The question was, what was it?