I stared out the small window in the side of the shuttle—uncomfortably named Fate Unknown—in utter fascination, just as I had during the takeoff on Mr. Spock. This time, however, it was a descent.
Heat burned along the sides of the shuttle as it entered Psittaca's atmosphere. It licked up around us like a shell of flames, and corny though it might sound, in those moments I thought I knew what it felt like to be a newborn phoenix, peeking through the top layer of ashes to watch the last of the fire die away. A new life. My new life. The idea of rebirth, of leaving behind who and what I'd been, made my heart pound with fear and excitement both.
"Pretty stellar, eh?"
I glanced at the seat next to me, where Diver sat. It was going to be just me and the Xeno-liaisons team going planetside first, but I'd asked Captain Chui for permission to take Diver with us. She'd raised her eyebrows at this apparently unusual request.
"Well," I'd said, banging my arms lightly against my side for a moment before getting control over them, "he helped a lot. Without his bird drones, we'd still be back where we were a few weeks ago. And I get the impression he doesn't often get to be one of the first to see a new planet."
Those eyebrows had risen even higher. "And that's the only reason?"
"Yes...?" I'd answered, unsure what other reason I might have.
Of course, now that I thought about it, it was kind of nice having Diver here. I still struggled to get along with the Xeno-liaisons team. They were nice to me, for the most part—except Christa—but I still felt so awkward around them. Though I hated admitting it to myself, I was much more comfortable around Diver. But I'd meant what I'd said to Captain Chui. I thought Diver deserved the chance to see this all first hand, after the work he'd done to help us see it at all.
"Christ," Sho said with a small burp. "I hate this part so much."
Marla rubbed his back. "It's almost over. Then you can drink your tea."
"Shuttle sickness," Diver explained in a quiet voice. "Some people only get in their first time, other people never stop experiencing it. Bet you didn't have so much as a hiccup, though."
I looked away, my cheeks warming with pride. Even as the shuttle slowed into the final stage of the descent, my stomach didn't so much as tremble. The rest of me did, as I took in all the green around us. It was so verdant, so rich in color, more so than a number of other jungles I'd seen holos of. The green wavelength must've been strong here, to create such startling emerald and such deeply saturated viridian. And as the shuttle settled into place, carefully perched on tree branches that tangled together like a crossroads, I saw hints of brightly colored birds and flowers.
"I still feel like we should rethink this," Christa said, once the engines had quieted. "Visiting is one thing, but setting up camp..."
She gestured at the pieces of the temporary habitat that we'd brought down with us. Until I'd seen the inside of the shuttle completely reconfigured, I didn't see how we'd fit the thing inside it. But with most of the seats folded away, there was plenty of room.
"It's not the first planet we've stayed on," Kimi pointed out.
"We had permission then."
"We're in neutral territory," I reminded her, quiet and unsure. "And we can leave if there's a problem, but this is a good way to get them used to us. It worked for Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey."
The team leveled five blank stares at me.
"Who?" Christa demanded.
I returned the stare, my own more astonished than blank. "Jane Goodall? Dian Fossey? They...surely they'd be part of the curriculum for any xenoanthropologist. I mean, I know they're Ancient Earth figures, but still, their work was...it was groundbreaking."
"Never heard of them," Marla said, shaking her head. "What did they do, precisely?"
I opened my mouth, and then paused. If I got into this now, I'd run the risk of standing here talking about it for hours, and we had work to get done. It was only us, Diver, and the pilot to get the hab set up and I didn't get the impression it was simple.
"You guys got HUDs, look it up for yourselves," Diver cut in, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "Me, I wanna see this place with my own eyes. Coming, Xan?"
"Sounds good to me," I said. "And look, if there really isn't any place we can set up the hab, best we find out now, right?"
Even for Christa, the excitement of setting foot on this new planet was too much to resist, and she stopped her arguing. The shuttle door came open with a hiss and I stepped out, Diver right behind me, into thick, warm air. My throat burned a little with my first inhale, as my filter-implant got a taste for the atmosphere. It was thicker than I was used to, but one step out of the shuttle and I realized the gravity was lighter. Wraith was a heavy-world, though not nearly so heavy as a planet like Mei Long; I had adjusted easily to Carpathia's gravity, but the bouncy steps I took here felt a little strange.
I kept my eyes on the tree branches beneath my feet, so thick and closely intertwined in this spot that they were almost a floor. Sun beat down from the break in the canopy above, so bright and hot that I found myself grateful for the lightness of my clothing. No wonder they live more under the shade of the trees. Sticky and humid though it might be, a little relief from the sun might help.
As if the universe was toying with me, a shadow spread out across the clearing, moving slowly like a cloud passing in front of the sun. In fact, I thought that was what it was, until I shaded my eyes and looked up. What I saw brought me to an abrupt halt, my mouth hanging open.
"Ho-lee shit," Diver said behind me.
"Whoa," I heard Sho add, his tone of voice holding a hint of green gills. "We never got any footage of one of those."
One of those was...well, there was no other way to describe it: It was a sky ray. Shaped vaguely like an Ancient Earth manta ray but so, so much bigger and drifting through the sky, not the ocean. Its silver-gray coloring reflected the sun; only the shade it was throwing allowed us to really see it. And then it inhaled, drawing in...something. Air, yes, definitely air, because its body inflated until its skin became mostly transparent. It floated lazily away from the clearing like a soap bubble and once the sun was in our eyes again, we could no longer see it.
"I think we're gonna need more footage," I said, still staring at the spot where it had disappeared.
"Science will never forgive us if we don't get some shots of that," Marla agreed.
"Guess I know what my job's gonna be," Diver said. "Maybe we should set up camp right here. It's a good spot, and those things might fly by often, for all we know."
"And we can take off quickly if something goes wrong," Christa added, her voice loaded with false sweetness.
I sighed. At least if something goes wrong, maybe she'll be too busy dealing with it to sling potshots at me for a bit. I didn't think there'd be much problem if we just stayed here in the clearing, though. It was the jungle where things might go wrong. We didn't know even a fraction of what was in there or if we could really navigate it successfully. And that was the Psittacans' true territory. How would they feel once we crossed the line into their space?
*****
Thankfully, the temporary habitat was made in a way that anyone could build it, even the ship's coterie of egg-heads. With the planet's light gravity I was able to contribute—though some pieces remained too heavy for me to handle—and Diver's expertise in the area of putting stuff together was a huge help whenever we got stuck. It still took more than an hour, and by the time we were done we were all completely sweat-soaked.
"Gross," Kimi complained, shaking her hands as if that might help. "I need a bath."
"I feel like I already had one," I said. "In a tub full of saliva."
Christa whipped around to stare at me. "What's your problem? Why would you even say that?"
"I...I..."
"She's not wrong," Diver said. "That's exactly what it feels like."
"I could've gone without the mental image, though," Marla admitted, sounding vaguely sick. "So uh...who gets first run at the shower?"
I sacrificed my rights to the shower until everyone else had had one, using the time to sit with my back against the enormous bole of a tree and stare up into the canopy. The bright green fronds spread above my head and the sounds—so many animals sounds—made it feel truly real for the first time: I wasn't on Wraith anymore. Suddenly I didn't mind any of it; the heat, Christa's constant sourness, the fact that I had to tie feathers in my hair. The thick air tasted of freedom.
We didn't make a try for the Psittacans that first day. After everyone, me included, had had our showers, we ate a little something and plotted out how we were planning to approach this. We had a semi-useful route through the jungle, thanks mainly to one of Diver's Ornithomorph drones, and the first gift was ready to go. But in the end we all agreed it was better to wait just a little, to see if any problems cropped up.
As the conversation turned to more trivial things, I wandered away a little, back to the tree trunk I'd been sitting against earlier. They'd probably think me rude for it, but I needed to be away from all the talk for a little while.
Above the break in the canopy, the sun was beginning its descent toward the horizon, though the air wasn't cooling down very much. I sat against the tree, rubbing the fingers of one hand idly over a patch of smoothed bark on the thick branch beneath me. So much to think about. What would happen tomorrow? Hell, what would happen tonight? So far no one had shown up to evict us, but maybe they didn't know we were here yet. In which case...what would they think once they knew? It was a conceit of Ancient Earth science fiction that other species never seemed to believe in life beyond their own planet, but in reality most of them at the least had the first inklings of the idea.
I was so busy mulling it over that I missed Diver's approach. It wasn't until he was sitting next to me, his thigh pressed lightly against mine, that I noticed his presence. I froze. What did he want from me?
But Diver said nothing. He leaned his head back against the tree and gazed up at the darkening sky. I waited...and waited some more. When I realized he was content to just sit, to leave me to my thoughts, I sucked in a deep, relieved breath; I'd hardly breathed at all while trying to figure out his intentions. It is lovely, I thought, tipping my head back to view the sky too. The clouds where going purplish-blue with approaching dusk and a tiny sliver of moon showed between the treetops.
We sat in companionable silence, me chasing questions and worries around my head, him...well, I had no clue. After a while, as it began to sink in that no one had shown up, angry at our presence, just yet, I relaxed a little and tried to quiet my mind. I couldn't be awake all night with a buzzing brain; I had a long day ahead of me tomorrow. I concentrated on the stars blinking to life above me, slowly but surely filling the sky. Even our small lamps couldn't produce enough light to drown out so many stars.
"Always my favorite part of a new planet," Diver said quietly. "The stars. They're different no matter where you go."
"Mmm," I rumbled in sleepy agreement, letting my eyes half close. "I've never seen so many before. Where—where I'm from, there's too many other lights."
"Grew up in a place like that," Diver said. "Took a while to get used to being on quieter planets. Well, I say quieter, but there's all manner of sounds out there, only I don't know what none of them are. That's the hard part."
"I guess we won't hear it if the locals do decide to come boot us off their planet."
"Oh, they're already here."
I straightened so abruptly that the bark scraped through my clothing. "What? What do you mean?"
"Couple my drones got eyes on 'em." Diver flashed me a smile, harder to make out in the dim lighting. "Relax. As far as I can tell, they're just checking us out. That's good. They're curious rather than scared, which means they're unlikely to get violent with us. At least, pretty sure if they were gonna, they would've already."
"The others should know about this, too," I said, rubbing my chest where my heart still pounded in fright.
"Already told 'em. You looked like you could use some quiet, though."
"I've got a lot on my mind."
"I can imagine. Are you really gonna let 'em tie feathers in your hair tomorrow?"
I groaned. "I can't see what else to do. They think it could work. I thought about pointing out that most of me was going to look pretty bare if I only had feathers in my hair. Luckily I managed to stop myself in time. Lord knows Christa would love an excuse to put me in a, well, excuse the pun, full-fledged feather suit."
"And then pass holos of it around the Carpathia. Yeah, I see your point. Well." He slapped his hands against his thighs and rose in one fluid motion. "Since you need to be up for your makeover tomorrow, I suspect it's getting time to get to bed."
"I guess so, yeah."
"Also, since you crept away from the dinner table without eating your nutrient-bar, it is now officially my job to stand there and watch you until you finish every last bite."
"Goddamnit!"
Diver chuckled. "Face it, newbie, Captain Chui is always gonna be one step ahead of you. C'mon."
He held a hand down to me. My palms were slightly damp from the humidity, but I couldn't resist the urge to reach up and place my hand in his. To my relief, he wasn't some perfect romance novel hero who stayed fresh as a daisy in blistering heat; a film of sweat coated his palm, too. He helped me to my feet, steadying me when I swayed a bit on the rounded surface of the branch. As soon as I was stable he let me go, leaving me both relieved and disappointed. Relieved because he seemed to realize and respect my boundaries; disappointed because I really did like his touch.
As Diver headed back into the middle of our camp, I lingered for a moment, staring into the dark depths of the forest. They were out there, watching us, weighing whether we should be trusted or disposed of. I hoped they chose to trust us.
"I can't promise a whole lot at this point," I murmured, even though my translator-implant hadn't been set so they could understand us. "But I can promise that I'll do my very best."
Something rustled. I thought I caught a flash of movement in the darkness, though it could easily be my eyes playing tricks on me. Cursing my inability to use a HUD, I shifted, turned my head, squinted, trying to catch another glimpse of movement. And then from the trees came a soft, almost familiar sound, a chirrup similar to the sort Cake made when he was happy to see me. My heart started racing with excitement. It could be anything, Xan, I tried to tell myself. There's so much life in this jungle, it could've been absolutely anything.
Still, I hugged myself and glanced back at the jungle, at that spot, several times as I headed into the heart of our camp. Sweet Mother Universe, let that sound be what I thought it was.