Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Epilogue Pt. 2 "Adventure Never Ends."

The leaves of the alien planet where a deep mauve in color shot through from stem to point with veins of electric blue. The bark, or what served for bark, on the trunks and stems of the tree-like plants were ashy gray and lined with little bubbles of light yellow syrup which leaked from gashes in the tree's sides. The syrup was edible, sort of sweet and citrusy and was actually pretty good when spread on toast, a fact that had become apparent only by way of happy accident and more than mild idiocy.

Still it was a little less stupid considering no one had been poisoned, and the camp that morning had been one of eager, bright-eyed optimism much to the chagrin of the night owls in the camp, forced to get up and go to work with the dawn.

The man knelt in the mud, rich and black with minerals, working gently with his hands to clip samples and take scrapings from the leaves and flowers of any strange plant that caught his fancy. He had laid out a few insect traps for good measure, and planned on waiting for a half hour or so before moving on to his next location.

While he waited, he broke out a field microscope, more compact and better suited for field work than the large and rather cumbersome laboratory style microscopes. He glanced through the lens jotting a few notes in a field notebook as he worked. He could have used the built-in note taking tool on his field HUD, but he had always preferred taking notes by hand, the work seemed more tangible that way.

It had been a little over ten years of work, and he had probably filled a couple hundred notebooks by now, each one dedicated to the flora and fauna of every new planet he came across. Ever since Armageddon, the universe around them was growing rapidly, every day more and more colonists set out to make a living for themselves on far flung planets. The population boom had been incredible for almost all the species.

There were now more colonies than there were central planets almost ten times over, some of them were corporate owned, used for mining or agriculture, but many of them were bought privately. Anyone could buy a planet if they had enough money, and were willing to sign documents promising they would protect the planet's natural beauty and resources. They didn't always follow through with their promises, but still, the GA did its best to keep things in line.

This reality was good for business, after all, every time a corporation found a new planet, they needed someone to go down and take a look. Partially it was to catalog the natural resources, determine habitability, but mostly, they were here to make sure no one else had already claimed the planet.

There was always the chance that there was some kind of sapient species inhabiting the planet, and that had happened to them a few times , however patients tend to leave behind a record of themselves, usually through the lines of infrastructure or sometimes even a satellite grid. That had happened to them at least three times in the past ten years, two of those species already having joined the GA while the third was still in talks.

Despite the mostly friendly nature of those encounters, it paid to be vigilant.

A twig snapped somewhere in the bushes behind him.

The man did not stop working, continuing along with the steady movement of his hands as he made methodical work of the plantlife before him. Making as if to place a sample in his bag, he slipped a hand through the open flap of the canvas, dropping the sampling container gently at the bottom while simultaneously moving his hand to brush cold metal.

From the back he looked like any other field scientist.

Having ditched the environmental suits some days ago, he now wore long pants laced beneath calf high boots to keep out alien bugs. His arms were bare from the biceps down past the simple black T-shirt and his head was bare of protection. He must have looked like an easy target from behind.