Shattered Stars

Negotiations

Nylis and I traded silent glances as we waited for Kyrom, Neval, and Vatria to walk down the stairs. All three were wearing their heavy-duty exploration suits. Vatria was a Grephen with the same light-brown fur as Neila, the only difference being a dark-brown stripe down the middle.

"Treat this as a standard recon mission," Kyrom said. "No weapons unless your life is threatened. Transmit all data to the lander with full encryption." He addressed me. "You are to stay within eyeshot of the lander, camouflaged, until you are called upon. We will also transmit to you, so you know of any emergencies. Do you understand?"

I nodded shyly as the external staircase deployed. Neval was the last to exit the lander. Just before he started down the stairs, he looked at me with concern. "If you are anxious, occupy yourself. There is no sense in dwelling on possibilities."

"Yeah," I murmured. I couldn't think of anything else to say before he left to follow the other two.

Nylis went to the upper level while I went searching in the kitchen area for food. All I could find were the tasteless bars that Neval had given me last time.

I took a mental picture of them and sent it to Nylis. "Do we have anything other than these?"

"You do not need anything else. Your implant can change your perception of taste to whatever you prefer."

I tilted my head. "Really?"

"You can find the function in your interface."

Sure enough, after a quick search through the thousands of apps, I found it. It prompted me to select a flavor from its expansive list. Apparently, I could only choose flavors that I had previously experienced. I selected "New York Cheesecake".

When I bit into the bar, it tasted exactly like New York Cheesecake, except without the expected texture. I ended up wolfing down an entire boxful of bars before Nylis scolded me for it.

Hurdi was nowhere to be found, but the external staircase was open. As I descended the stairs into the outside darkness, my camouflage ability automatically activated, turning my scales into a dark collage of brown and black. My cuffs turned black as well.

Peaceful silence hung in the night air, accompanied by a faint aroma of sea salt and pine. The pine trees whispered as they gently swayed in the sea breeze. The lander was cloaked, though I could still see it thanks to its outline in my interface.

Just as my feet hit the pine needles, three windows materialized in my vision. They were the transmissions from the three aliens showing three similar perspectives of their hike up the mountain. While I could mute them, I couldn't erase them from my field of view, so I made them small and far off in my peripheral vision.

Hurdi hadn't gone far. He wore an exploration suit and was examining the base of a tree.

"Hey," I said as I walked up behind him.

He glanced in my direction with a startled look that morphed into boredom. He returned to his examination. "Hello."

"Sorry," I mumbled. "I didn't mean to scare you. My body camouflaged on its own."

Hurdi didn't respond. I stood beside him to see what he was doing. He sifted through the pine needles with a gloved hand, paused for a moment, then brought his hand to his eye level. In his palm crawled a red ladybug.

"Curious," he mused, tilting his hand to compensate for the ladybug trying to crawl off it. "Life on your world resembles the life that was on our own."

"How so?" I asked as I leaned on a nearby tree.

"The same modes of reproduction, the same basic structures, the same genetic structure: the double helix." He lowered his hand to the ground to let the ladybug go. He watched fondly as it skittered to the edge of his hand and flew off. "Even similar patterns of evolution."