Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side-sim: The Study of Kelmao

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side-sim: The Study of Kelmao

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side-sim: The Study of Kelmao
Posted by… suppressed (10) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman had actually forgotten about the hypo, his mind focused elsewhere. When he took the bowl of ice water, he saw it. “It stays cold?” He asked. “I’d hope to bring some aboard with us. That’s interesting. I’d bet the lake and river water is also ice cold.” While he switched the old compress for a new one, he eyed it. They were going to end up in Sickbay either way, and it would raise the chances the swelling went down before the ship got back. Hesitantly, he picked up the hypo.

Rand noticed but didn’t say anything. Instead she unwound the compress around her ankle. Despite the rainbow of sick colors the swelling did seem some less. Rand stole a glance at his leg and the compress seemed to be loose. Since he hadn’t been moving around she hoped that meant the swelling was down for him as well. She smiled at his comment and she tapped the sample case that she had slid just inside the entrance. “Rain water sample in there. And I heard Harvey tell Franks over the comm she got a sample from the lake with one of the drones.”

It probably did mean the swelling was down, at least a little, as when Roman put on the new one, he made sure it was tight. Uncertainly, he used the hypo, giving himself a dose of the anti-inflammatory medicine at last. Then he put it down between them where it had been before. The icy compress and the medicine together would hopefully stop the swelling more quickly, which he hoped would help with the pain.

She picked up the hypo, she really hated these things, why did they have to look like guns? Then setting the dose she gave herself the anti-inflammatory. She put the hypo back in the medical bag and then finished wrapping her ankle again.

Across the river there were a serious of squeaks, similar to what the bear had made, but many many more. Rand looked over and gasped....it was heard of elephant sized bears. All different shades of fur, the smaller ones were all earth tones, but the adults were pastel. They were stunning. “Oh wow....”

Yeoman Rand

Roman looked up when he heard Rand. “They’re pastel! They’re beautiful.” The bears were the size of elephants. “They clearly don’t use camouflage, so they must have other defenses.” He noted, sounding more like his usual self. He wrote down several more observations. “I have never seen such a large animal squeak like that.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

She had to smile, he sounded so excited. She’d never heard him use the term ‘beautiful’ to describe his work. “Maybe the babies do? They are brown, tan… it’s hard to tell from here, but the one on the far left looks like a dark green.” She watched as the one on their side squeaked and pawed the ground moving toward the water and then away. Rand laughed, “Just like a child. When alone brave and wreckless, when mom and Dad show up, totally helpless.” Then several of the adults waded into the water and across the river.

As they stepped into the bank there was some confusion and a lot of stomping and loud echoing squeaking…and the ground began to shake....the sink hole…the adults moved quickly back into the water. The baby however did not and started to sink.

Rand of course wanted to run to help, but couldn’t and shouldn’t. Before the thought really registered though, one of the adults stomped back up onto the bank right towards the little one and....the horns uncurled and wrapped around the little one and jerked it out of the mire before running back for the water. “Did..did the horns…am I hallucinating?”

Yeoman Rand

“The babies are weaker. The adults have their size at least, but I would guess they have another defense as well,” Roman said. He watched as well. Because of his job he was used to letting nature take its course. The adult used its curled horns like the trunk of an elephant to rescue the baby and Roman looked mildly surprised. “No, that happened,” he said, grabbing his notes to add the observation.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand watched, a smile tugging at her mouth, as the group made its way back across the river. The little one was placed amongst the group and it seemed that every adult took turned uncurling their horns and touching the baby. Squeaks rilled and vibrated across the air. Even the other babies seemed to engage in inspecting the rescued child. A few of the adults on the very edge turned their back in the group staying close but looking outward. The colors were stunning. “Hey, Roman,” Rand looked at him and grinned. She had that mischievous smile she got when she teased him, but her voice sounded hesitant.

“If you hadn’t hurt your leg you never would have seen this. You’d be too busy running around the woods.”

Yeoman Rand

Roman finished another note about the animals’ interactions with each other. He looked up at Rand. She was grinning, but she sounded uncertain, hesitant. When she said what she did, he looked surprised for a moment, maybe a little hurt, and then his expression changed to a smile of his own. “Perhaps I wouldn’t. But I might have seen something that now I’ll miss. Either way, I am happy I saw them with you.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand smiled, “I am too.” And then she pointed at the screen for the cameras, “but over here you still have to use the cameras so your presence doesn’t scare them away. Aaaannnddd you can run the video back and not miss a thing. So maybe tomorrow we can find a different place to sit still?” She really was going to work with him on the whole the ‘glass is half full’ thing.

Roman shrugged. Maybe if his leg felt better tomorrow than it did today. Getting this far had been hard enough and he wasn’t looking forward to moving back inside the cave. “The cameras also do night capture, so we don’t miss things while we’re sleeping,” he said.

“Sleep? How can you sleep? There are animals moving around. I don’t suppose the rest of them can stay at the old site, so the animals don’t leave?” She was joking of course. “With a 48 hour night what do you think the nocturnal animals will be like. Do you think they might be more sensitive to light? Or maybe they glow?” The dinurnal animals were gorgeous in their colors, she was more than curious about the other animals. Rand was herself again, apparently she couldn’t really stay mad at him, but she was very worried about the ship coming back.

Roman smiled, shaking his head. “At least I’ll have something to do if I can’t sleep,” he said in reply to her joke. He considered her question, like he always did back in the lab. “Could be both, could be neither. They could simply be blind or have poor eyesight, like bats.” He said. “It will be interesting to see how they evolved for the length of nights here.” Rand seemed more like herself, which made Roman feel better. He was also worried about the return of the ship, but he chose to focus on his work instead.

“Do you think there might be animals that never encounter each other because if the length of the day cycle? Or one that never actually encounter day light or darkness?” Rand figured the animals were probably similarly adapted to Earth animals, and were designed to deal with the longer day and night cycle. Then a thought occured to her, “The temperature always drops significantly a few hours before dawn on Earth. Do we need to worry about the temperature really dropping with the longer night cycle?” If so she would ask Morgan and Harvey to bring back more water rations for hot food and drinks for over night.

Normally Roman loved her questions. It was one of his favourite things to explain everything to her. But his pain was making it harder to think and Rand’s questions felt endless. “Different planets have different cycles, different evolutions. I have no way to say for sure.” It was a fancy way of saying I don’t know. To her last thought he nodded. “I’m not sure, but it’s better safe than frozen.”

Rand was too excited to realize she was annoying Roman, and she grinned, slightly embarrassed, when he basically told her I don’t know and then moved on. She picked up her communicator and asked Morgan to bring extra water rations from the first campsite.

They had sat long and still enough some of the smaller mammals were scuttling about. But when she looked back at him she suddenly reached out and pulled him toward her a bit, careful not to move his leg, and then pointed. There was something moving on the rocks about 3 feet above him and moving upward. It looked almost transparent.

Yeoman Rand

He looked at Rand suddenly as she pulled him, and then she pointed and Roman looked up. A nearly transparent animal crawled along the rocks above him. Slowly and quietly, he got the best picture he could of the animal. Then, once again, he grabbed his notes to write about it.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

The animal looked kind of like a mouse, but the tail curled like a chameleon or laid flat and the feet had round toes like suction cups and it reminded her more of a lizard. It had no fur but more of a hide. It scrambled back and forth across the rocks following the line where the sun light hit the rock face. It was strange seeing all the internal parts as it moved.

There was a loud whistle like sound and the lizard-mouse-thing flattened against the rock face. A very very large bird swooped down, claws extended, but then suddenly there was a bright flash of light and the bird veered off with an angry whistle (if a whistle can sound angry). The lizard’s skin had turned reflective and the sunlight had flashed off of it, blinding the bird. Rand just sat there, mouth slightly open, blinking and staring in awe at the thing.

Yeoman Rand

Seeing the exchange so close to them surprised Roman, and he wished he’d caught it on one of the cameras. Like a chameleon, obviously this lizard could change the qualities of its skin. Except instead of colors it had gone from transparent to brightly reflective. He had to avert his own eyes at the flash. The bird of prey had flown off. The bird looked like a hawk, and he decided then that’s what its common name should be. A whistling hawk. That’s how he’d call it in his notes. Keeping his voice down so he didn’t scare off the animals he said, “I’ve not seen anything quite like that.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand grinned, knowing it was totally unthinkable, but hoping to add some levity to thier conversation, she whispered, “I want one.” There was a long stick just within reach. She considered trying to get the small lizard to climb onto it, but she didn’t know if it was poisonous or not and she didn’t have any protective gloves. Or it could spit venom or something. But as they watched the shadow line moved and covered the lizard who quickly scurried up the wall into the sunlight again.

“Do you think the predators hunt more aggressively as the sun starts to set? With night being so long they kind of…I don’t know, stock pile food? I’ve never seen a bird hunt that close to humans. But then it doesn’t know what we are does it.” A flash of color caught her eye and she reached for the sample case and gave him tweezers and a jar and pointed to his other side. An amethyst purple to ruby red feather was on the ground beside him. “Looks like it shed a feather.”

Yeoman Rand

“I would love to study one,” Roman replied, wishing he had more space on the Sentinel. “It would probably make a poor pet, though,” he said, looking at Rand. He was smiling. With her next set of questions Roman simply shrugged. “As much as I’d love to live up to your expectations, Miranda, I don’t possess the answer to every biological question in the universe.” He was giving her one of his looks, smiling and a bit mischievous.

At least she looked sheepish and got quiet that time. But that look made her grin and blush. And then look quickly to make sure they were alone. “Right…I..I’ll just go back to the samples.” She wasn’t upset, more like feeling awkward and that look that always made her blush.

Roman’s look turned playful as she blushed and he smiled. “Or ask more questions. I can say ‘I don’t know’ in many more ways,” he said. He was teasing her, momentarily pausing his work to look at her.

Rand blushed even harder if that was possible. She was glad they weren’t avoiding talking anymore. Or at least she wasn’t worried and stressing over what she should do. “Chan eil fios agam, I do not know.” Then her look turned teasing again. “I guess I should keep asking, otherwise how will you know what to make observe for?” She was joking, she really didn’t think anything she was curious about would have any significant scientific value. She just liked animals.

Roman repeated the words, trying to memorize the phrase. “Now I have a new way to say it,” he said and smiled again. Sometimes her questions did give him perspective, help him see certain problems or scientific situations differently. That was part of the reason he liked her help. He grinned as she teased and said, “If you’re helping me decide what to observe I suppose you’ll just have to always help me work.”

Rand tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The compliment made her smile. She had been teasing him a bit, just joking He was flirting with her a bit as well, but more he really meant it. Rand knew that. Roman would not allow her, or even suggest, to work with him unless he found her help useful. He didn’t allow incompetence in the labs. “I’d like that.” She liked the idea of always being around to help him. Even if it was just with paperwork.

Roman smiled. He had been half joking, as Rand guessed. He loved her theories and of course he always had trouble with keeping up with paperwork. He liked her answer. “Honourary scientist Rand, then?” He said. Another half joke. He knew she hadn’t the training nor education to really be a scientist. But she was always in the lab, and he knew at least everyone he could think of on the alpha shift liked her.

Taking the tools, he picked up the feather with the tweezers and placed it gently in the jar. He screwed the top onto the jar, then held it up for them to see. “Everything here, at least the diurnal animals, are so brightly coloured. I wonder why…” He said, and then handing her the jar and tweezers back, he began writing more notes on his notepad. The notes were neatly organized, though his handwriting wasn’t as neat as usual.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Problem was the only sample left was the feather. Rand was very efficient. “Maybe Frank’s might have an idea why, or Valos? Because even the trees seem affected by whatever it is.”

Yeoman Rand

“Franks might have an idea, but his studies aren’t focused on the evolution of animals, they are on the environment in general. Valos is a botanist, he could tell you much more about plants than me, tell you how the leaves are blue, but I doubt he could hedge a guess why they’re blue,” Roman said. “It could have just happened that way, or perhaps there is something we can’t perceive with the naked eye that makes so much color advantageous.”

It was getting late in the day by Sentinel time, nearly 1800 by then, and Roman assumed the rest of the team would be back soon. By the planet’s time it was sundown, and it would soon be fully dark. The rest of their time on the planet would be spent in the night. At least they’d have the chance to study nocturnal animals, though Roman was well aware that at least on Earth, most predatory animals were nocturnal.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand tilted her head to the side. “Well bright colors on Earth usually indicate an animal is poisonous, or mimicking an animal that is. But could everything here be poisonous?” She looked around it wasn’t just mammals or plants it seemed to be everything. “Could…could it be some mineral in the soil? The plants soak it up and then it flows up the food chain?”

Yeoman Rand

Roman shook his head. “I doubt they’re poisonous. The plants are bright, and nothing has tested poisonous. It could be something in the soil, it could also be how they process something in the soil, and that works its way up the food chain. I’d need a microscope and a lot of time to tell you for sure.”

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Rand nodded still considering how that might work. “I know it’s not biology, but could…could a soil sample be taken and one of the plants on board be transplanted into it and see if the same thing happens?” She knew that probably wasn’t the best experiment or efficient way to find out anything, but she was curious what would happen.

Before he could answer a few things happened. First the drone returned from the other side of the river. Rand handed Roman a blank data disk to copy the recordings and readings off of it. Then Franks and Valos returned. They set down several sample cases near Rand. Franks picked up the receiver for the cameras and sat down near Alden. He wanted to discuss some tracks he found and possibly changing a couple cameras before it was full night.

Valos sat down next to Rand. Closer than what she was comfortable with, but not inappropriate. Apparently he heard her last question. “Curious about the colors, Rand?” he asked, smiling oddly at her. “It would be interesting to see what would happen to alien flora when introduced to the environment. But the soil alone may not be the cause. The air composition or the water, or even secretions from the worms and insects leave in the soil. I could get you enough of a soil sample if you want to try.” Rand just shook her head no. Though this more friendlier version of Valos was nice she wasn’t sure why he was being so familiar. Until he started asking her how she was, did she need anything, could he help her, how was her foot, did she need help going inside. He was flirting with her. Oh lords....she pushed herself more upright, scooting back some and then tucking her hands behind her back to hide the sudden sharp and rapid increase of her anxiety. He kept talking to her, but Rand only heard buzzing and her own heart pounding in her ears. She couldn’t exactly leave like she would if she were on the ship. “I’m, I really need to start working on the samples.” She grabbed the first case, which was Franks, connected his tricorder to her PaDD, and then popped the ear piece in and started listening. Valos nodded, she probably had nothing to do all day and Alden had probably berated her for being lazy. “I can help,” and then he proceeded to try. Rand did her best to ignore him.

Roman copied the data from the drone onto the disk Rand had given him. He was discussing the tracks with Franks, but his attention was elsewhere. He was giving Valos a rather nasty look. He couldn’t hear everything Valos said, but he could tell by watching them it was way too flirty with his girlfriend for his liking. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t sure Rand would want him to. He was relieved to see Rand ignoring Valos.

At some point during all this, Franks got the walking stick and helped Alden up and helped support him into the trees so he could have privacy. Not too far, Franks didn’t want either of them to strain their injuries. Really he thought they were really lucky they weren’t hurt worse. Rand hoped they hurried back.

Yeoman Rand

At some point Franks insisted Roman needed to get up so they could get some privacy. Roman wasn’t sure why. At least the swelling in his leg was down a little, but getting up, even with support, still made the pain worse. Using the walking stick to support the injured side and Franks for further support, he went a little ways out into the trees with the other scientist.

~ Lt Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Franks had brought a holocamera with him. “I didn’t want to mention this in front of anyone else until we had decided what to do. Especially Valos. I’m afraid he might do something stupid.” He glanced back at Valos who was trying very hard to get Rand’s attention, and she was obviously not interested. Valos was young and had no clue. Franks offered Alden the camera, “These tracks were made before the storm, you can tell by how they are washed out, but they had to be deep to have survived all the rain. You can tell here,” he swiped a few pictures forward, “it has retractable claws, I’m thinking large feline type, it pushed off to jump, I think.” The next picture showed Franks’ hand next to it for size comparison. It was almost 3 times bigger than his. “I found scat and did a chemical breakdown, mostly protein. It’s carnivorous. And most predators are nocturnal. There is no way to tell if our scent will scare it off or make it curious. Fire usually keeps predators away, but that is no guarantee, and we haven’t analyzed the wood to see if it’s safe to burn. We’ll need Valos to do that if we decide to light a fire. I would rather scare it away than have to shoot it.”

Meanwhile Valos was making a mess of Rand’s system in his effort to help. She wanted to scream. She had to keep reordering the sample jars a double check them because he had mixed up which were finished and which were not. Finally, trying to be nice, “En. Valos, if you want to help, how about you start on your samples? You know those better, and the work would go faster.” Anyone else would notice that the Yeoman sounded exasperated and frustrated, but Valos was too busy trying to flirt with her to notice. He took her statement of the work going faster to mean she wanted to get done and talk to him. He gladly started working on his own samples. “Of course…Rand…anything I can do to help. Call me Ethan.” Rand looked like she would be sick, this was preposterous and obviously studiously focusing on her work wasn’t getting through to him. Seeing Roman and Franks reappear she glanced at Roman, and it was clear to him her anxiety was bothering her.

Then suddenly she shot up to standing as Morgan and Harvey appeared. “Morgan would you mind?” and she waved toward the trees. She wasn’t in a hurry, but she did want away from Valos. He wasn’t being a jerk, but Rand didn’t handle the attention well. “Rand, I can help you up, here.” And Valos was in her space, and nerves and awkwardness and anxiety made her voice higher than she liked, “That would be highly inappropriate, Ensign.” Realizing what he had just offered, Valos at least had the good sense to look embarrassed. Morgan hurried over and they disappeared into the trees. Rand thought she would die from embarrassment.

Yeoman Rand