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Delphi Promised Excerpt

It took some careful maneuvering to finally free herself from a tangled bit of vegetation but, once loose, it was just a short and careful crawl across the surface of the swamp to reach her target. The massive, gray-skinned creature continued to feed contentedly, unaware of the latest parasite to climb up one of its two legs and onto its back.

Cyann tucked a rebellious strand of blue hair behind her ear and leaned forward, utterly unaware of the tension in her body or the lower lip gripped between her teeth as she crept toward the animal's humped shoulders. She figured that the two trunk-like appendages dangling from either side of its face would not be able to reach her there.

“You just hold still, beastie,” she murmured, unaware of having spoken aloud.

They had determined it to be mammalian, but its skin was as hairless as a reptile's and apparently just as tough. Patiently, she extended a small probe into its epidermis to take a sample, pleased when this didn't cause enough discomfort for her victim to start swatting the pest on its back. That tiny bit of blood and skin would provide them with endless information about this creature. Satisfied with her work, she raised herself up a little to look around the densely forested landscape.

The biped lumbered slowly through the swamp as it chewed on bulbous fungus rising above the water, only rarely using its front appendages to aid with the meal. The globes burst in clouds of orange and yellow spores that drifted like mist above the bog. She secured herself a little more when her host started to move toward the rest of the small herd, eager to study their interaction. One of the others looked up and watched their approach. There was something wary about its stance and Cyann wondered if it had spotted the foreigner among them.

She smiled when it tilted its head and blinked large, intelligent eyes. Although these herbivores appeared dull and clumsy at first glance, there was something about them that made her suspect at least a rudimentary level of self-awareness - an interesting phase of any planet's evolution. The animal seemed aware of her and moved closer to inspect the strange passenger on its herd-mate's back. With ponderous care, it extended one of its appendages toward her.

A heavy hand dropped onto her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her chair.

“Sorry!”

“Don't do that!” Cyann exclaimed. Her mental connection to the crawler probe broke when she removed the headset attached to the neural implant at her temple. She turned from her console to see Anders Devaughn, their project lead for this expedition, stand behind her bearing cups of tea. “Do you have any idea how creepy that is?”

Her boss, friend and uncle by choice grinned and looked over her head at a bank of screens displaying various angles of the research ship's marshy surroundings. “I do. That's what makes it so much fun.”

“It's only fun the first few times,” Cyann said, not half as annoyed as she sounded, and took a cup from his tray. She looked over to Nigel, their mission pilot and technician, bent over a workstation where he was preparing another of the silicone centipedes for deployment. “Warn me next time he sneaks up on me.”

He stopped chewing his lanky blond mustache long enough to reply. “And then what would I do for fun? Ooh, tea.”

“Did you get some of that fungus?” Anders asked.

“Yes,” Cyann said. “And that green goo. I do think they're eggs of some kind. Amphibian, probably. Can't wait till we get below the surface of the swamp.”

He regarded her thoughtfully. “Tomorrow. This is just a sampling expedition. No need to catalog the entire planet. We'll leave that to Roley's team. Bring the probe back in and then get some sleep. You look tired.”

“Thanks, Uncle Anders,” she said sardonically and picked up her headset. “That's something every girl likes to hear.”

“I think your mother slapped me last time I said that to her.” Anders dropped heavily into an empty chair beside her and scrolled through some of the data they had gathered about the planet's atmosphere and its inhabitants. “She works too much, too. But after almost thirty years around you two I still don't know when to mind my own business.”

Cyann smiled at him with great fondness. A family friend rather than actually an uncle, Anders had been a part of her life since her birth and for long intervals more present than her own parents. As Human as her mother, Anders had encouraged her interest in xenobiology, pleased when she qualified for a position on his research team.

She looked down at her blue fingernails, as much as her blue hair a reminder of her father's contribution to her unique status as a Human-Delphian hybrid, the only one in existence. Only uneasily accepted among either side of her heritage, she had happily retreated into her work among newly discovered planets, away from judgment and speculation.

“What is it?” Anders said, noting the darkening of her blue eyes, a sure sign among Delphians that something was bothering them.

“Tired. Like you said.” She turned back to her screens and activated her neural interface to return her focus to the crawler still riding the mammal's back. “I better get the probe back before the herd wanders off with it.”

“What'll we name them?” Anders asked.

“Your turn, Nigel,” she called over her shoulder.

The technician rotated his cramped shoulders and then yawned hugely. “Oh, nice! I get to name the cows. You get to name the cool things with wings and teeth and loud noises.” He thought a moment. “How about Cyann's Spotted Leatherbutt?”

Anders nodded and started to enter the name beside the creature's more scientific designation.

“Stop that, you two!” Cyann laughed. The quick warble of an incoming message caught her attention. “News packet is in.”

She reached over to the com panel and loaded the news onto one of the screens. They caught up on some developments regarding a trade agreement, an announcement of a new appointment to the Commonwealth's governing council, and disconcerting resurgence of rebel activity on Magra.

Cyann switched the report to the ship's main screen when one of the items mentioned Delphi. An asteroid of some sort was heading toward the planet. It was large enough to cause very serious damage in collision but not too large to be diverted or destroyed by Air Command technology.

“That's weird,” she said when the narrator went on to report that the boulder had emerged from subspace using the same jumpsites commercial ships used to reach the Delphian sector.

“What are the odds?” Anders murmured. “Kind of sloppy of them to let it even enter the jumpsite. Did no one see that coming?”

“Must have fallen in there during someone else's transit,” Cyann said. All mapped sites had at least an automated Union beacon to monitor traffic entering subspace, mostly to keep track of pirates and smugglers. “I think I'll skip the Low-G ball scores and get that probe back. And then I'm going to fall into my bunk for about ten hours.”