Both shuttles landed on Amity at almost the same time. One went to one of the drier continents, and it contained Shelby with Chris Harris, Nyota Warren, Ethan Novakovich and MACO Walter Woods.
Shelby got out first, and Walter was right behind her. “We should really name these continents,” she asked, “What would you name a continent, if you could?”
“Me?”
“You’re as likely a person as any to do the naming. So have at it.”
“Huh,” he thought for a moment, “this is the north dry one, right?”
“Yep.” The others got out of the shuttle, except for Chris.
“Well, what’s dry north in Latin?” he asked.
“Let’s ask Hoshi when we get back. Actually, maybe we can name all of them that way,” Nyota suggested.
She and Ethan unfolded and attached the big rake to the back of the shuttle. “Okay, Chris!” Shelby called out, “Ready to go!”
He gave her the thumbs up and took off. He took a low pass over a flat area and the rake hit the ground and plowed it in fairly neat rows. When he was done, he landed nearer to where they were.
Then they removed a few sacks of seeds from the back of the shuttle. All five of them strewed the seeds, trying to get them inside the plowed furrows. Once they were done, Chris got back in the shuttle and lifted off. He made another pass with the rake and then landed again. Then the five of them manually turned over more of the dirt in order to cover up any seeds that they could see.
Finally, Walter and Nyota removed the rake and folded it back up. They placed it into the back of the shuttle while Shelby and Ethan set up a camera.
When all five of them were in the shuttle, Chris took off again. “So,” he asked, “what do we do now?”
“Pray for rain,” Shelby quipped.
=/=
The other shuttle landed on a wetter continent and contained Jay Hayes, Travis Mayweather, Andy Miller, Scafen, Ketton and two MACOs – Julie McKenzie and Brad Moreno.
“How very curious,” Scafen remarked as soon as he disembarked. “Have you noticed these holes in the ground?”
“We have,” Andy confirmed, “and in some places, they seem to be pretty uniform, as if whatever made them meant to do that.”
“Perhaps it – or they – did mean it,” Ketton opined.
“Look, over there,” Jay pointed. Julie and Brad raised their phase rifles and looked through their scopes.
“What are we looking for?” Scafen asked.
“One of the big beasts, it’s over there,” Julie replied.
“Come with me,” Jay said to Brad. The two of them jogged over toward the beast.
“Everybody else, stay here,” Julie cautioned.
=/=
Several meters away, Jay and Brad came up close to the beast. “Keep your rifle down unless threatened,” Jay commanded, “We don’t know anything about intelligence or intentions.” He held out his universal translator, but it wasn’t helping one iota.
Then, they saw it. The beast stepped, apparently, into one of the holes, which were too small for an adult human’s foot but seemed to fit the beast’s feet perfectly. It fell, gracelessly, to the ground.
They rushed closer. The beast had how many legs? Twelve? Fourteen? It struggled a little. Brad raised his rifle, to dispatch it. “No, wait,” Jay commanded, “We’ll see what happens to it.”
“Yes, sir.”
They waited for a few minutes and then there was a bit of a clapping and a chattering sound, which seemed to be coming from the ground.
Then all around them, creatures began crawling out of the little holes in the ground.
They were small, and seemed to be ignoring Jay and Brad, at least for the moment. They were odd little things, also with, perhaps, a dozen legs, but their backs were a lot like clam shells. The creatures didn’t seem to have heads, unless those were enclosed in the shells, or maybe those were the shells.
They gathered around the fallen beast and there was a lot of clapping and what seemed to be chatter. “They’re talking about it, sir,” Brad concluded.
“Maybe,” Jay replied cautiously, “it might be more like dogs barking or something like that.”
Then one of them – the leader? – It maneuvered over to the side of the big beast and clapped its shell loudly. A few others came over and appeared to try to hold down one of the beast’s freer legs. When the leg was held down, the first one positioned its shell and closed it on the side of the beast’s leg. In a few seconds, the beast stopped struggling.
“What did it just do?”
“I think it poisoned the big thing,” Jay guessed, “or maybe it cut off some vital artery or something. I dunno.”
The little clamshell creatures set about clapping their shells on the beast’s legs and it was obvious that they were snipping away pieces of it. Others came and took away the pieces, bringing them into the holes. At one point, the one leg that had been held in the ground was released, and it, too, was cut up. The little creatures snipped away everything but what could only be described as the beast’s torso, although it was somewhat shapeless and didn’t seem to have a coherent structure. The big beast appeared to be an invertebrate.
“Cover me,” Jay commanded, “and make sure they don’t pinch me with a shell. We don’t know if their poison – or whatever it is – can work on us.” He leaned over and, taking a knife out of a zippered pocket, cut off a piece of the big carcass’s torso and stuffed it into a small bag and then into a pocket. The clamshell aliens scattered, all of them rushing down the holes.
“Should we try to catch one of the little guys, you think?” Brad asked.
“We’ll get Miller or one of the other science people back here with some sort of safer sample cage. Until then, we’d better leave the little guys alone. C’mon, let’s go back.”
=/=
Back with the others, they reported their findings. “Yeah, Andy would be the right person to check on that, or maybe Diana or Ethan N.,” Shelby speculated, “But, weird. It’s almost like the big guys are the cows or the deer and the little guys are the wolves.”
“Yeah,” Jay allowed as they took off, “maybe.”
“I don’t understand your analogy, of course,” Scafen said, “Do you think they will pose a danger to the plantings on the northern continent?”
“No way to tell,” Jay said, “Right now, I’m guessing no, ‘cause I don’t think we’ve seen those holes anywhere where it isn’t really swampy. The little guys, they might like the water, or even need it for something.”
“Probably for reproduction,” Shelby speculated, “but maybe also for easier to find food. The big guys might be some big hunt, a special treat, that kind of thing. The little jobs might mainly live off smaller stuff, like the equivalent of plankton. Of course I’m just speculating.”
=/=
Back at the NX-01, Andy caught up with Jay. “I understand you have something for me,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, here,” Jay gave him the bag. “It’s all I could safely get. You should go back with a secure cage and grab a few of the little clam guys and study them. But bring along a couple of my people and be careful – we think they’re poisonous or something. They took down a thing that was maybe a thousand times bigger than them, and it looked like it was with just one bite, or what you could call a bite.”
“Yeah, I probably should capture a live one. And, uh, thanks.” He walked over to the Bio Lab as Jay returned to his own quarters.
=/=
In the Bio Lab, Andy looked at the sample a few times under a microscope. “I wish you were bigger, or more complete, Mister Sample.”
In the lens, he could see greenish and bluish streaks, striations that might have been muscle or skin or even something related to digestion. It was impossible to tell for sure, but it was rife with a toxin. He ran some of it through a centrifuge and awaited a chemical analysis.
The door swished open and he jumped. “Shelby! You should knock or something.”
“Oh, sorry, I just got a little excited.”
“About today’s events? Didn’t you just plant a bunch of seeds?”
“I did, but, do you ever look at the camera work from Paradise?”
“No, sorry, I don’t.”
“Here,” she started to fiddle with her PADD, “I’ll show you.” It was a picture of the camera feed from the hotter planet. The feed showed the two plants that had been ceremoniously interred back in August of that year.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“Here,” she pointed at a small green orb on the screen.
“What is that?”
“It’s a little orange. It’s not ripe yet or anything, but, check it out!” She adjusted the settings and zoomed in.
His jaw about hit the floor. “Oh, my God! That is an orange! Shelby, this is excellent!”
“Yeah!” she yelled, a little loudly, “We’re gonna be parents!”
She lunged over and hugged him, and he hugged back, and then suddenly he turned to face her and she was smiling so broadly and so freely and so happily that he had to kiss her.
He pulled back after a second, and they both laughed a little with nervousness. “I, uh,” he stammered, “Maybe that was too much.” He realized he still had his hand on her waist. He removed it.
“No, that was good.” This time she initiated the kiss.
=/=
“Julie!” Travis called after her.
“Yes?”
“Thanks for coming along today.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she told him, “the outings are kinda fun.”
“I was, uh, wondering,” he said, “do you like looking at star maps?”
“Huh?”
“You know, the maps and stuff.”
“I prefer looking at the stars themselves,” she replied.
“If you, uh, if you like, maybe I could show you on a PADD a map of where I’ve been, and we could look out the window of the Observation Lounge and I could point some of those places out to you tonight.”
“Are you asking me out, Travis?”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all,” she smiled, “I think it’ll be fun. In fact, I’m sure it will be.”
=/=
Andrew Miller’s Personal log, November twenty-third, 2037
I had not thought of Shelby this way before. I should have. She’s great.
=/=
Jay Hayes’s Personal log, November twenty-third, 2037
Captain Archer says I’ll be going back to Amity soon. This time, we’ll make sure the big beasts aren’t sentient, and then we’ll see if we can bring one back, probably dead as I don’t think it’ll fit inside a shuttle and we have no idea what beaming it up would do to it. Plus Miller will come down and see if he can grab a few of those – I guess you’d call them little clam guys. It’s funny. We go to alien worlds and sometimes we just don’t expect them to be quite so, well, alien.
Silly humans, eh?
=/=
Julie McKenzie’s Personal log, November twenty-third, 2037
Travis and I are going to go look at the stars soon, if yanno what I mean.
=/=
Hoshi Sato’s Personal log, November twenty-third, 2037
Nyota asked me for some likely Latin names for the continents on Amity. I came up some that we can vote on. For the northern dry continent, Aquilasicca; this means north and dry. For the southern continent – which is wet – Meridia, which just means south. For the eastern wet continent, maybe Imperia, which means empire. After all, it’s like the empire for those like clam guys. And for the last continent, which is more westerly and is dry, how about Tritica? That means wheat, which is where Shelby and the others are going to plant wheat. The other one’s been sown with corn and rye.
As for the wildlife, I have a few ideas about those. Maybe Procul for the big guys – it means faraway, and God knows we are far from anything and everything familiar. As for the little poisonous clams? Malostrea. I’m particularly happy with that one. It means evil oyster.