The others started trailing in not long after.
“Captain Silva and Dr. Andretti have been assigned new quarters just off the platoon hub while the Noridian prisoner will stay in the small conference room with the transparent walls. Captain Kamiko is in charge of their security,” Major Reagan was explaining to us.
“According to what Dr. Spencer learned from Silva last night the Noridian has been blocked from the ship and that includes access to our communications. In the last meeting of the evening, when we brought Silva and Andretti together, we were assured that they were not monitoring those same earpiece communications but Silva was very forthcoming in admitting that all it would take to change that would be a simple thought to his bioware—this is why I asked all of you to leave your earpieces outside the room.”
“Major,” I said. “Does he really need the earpieces to monitor us?” I had suspected Jaki of listening to several of my conversations that could only have come from some type of internal ship listening ability.
Some of the things she’d whispered into my ear and other innuendo could only have come from private conversations I’d had with Anzio.
“Dr. Spencer, the real answer is we don’t know,” he responded. “But when I asked him about it he claims that he isn’t able to access that level of ship control. Other than being able to lock an individual out of the system altogether he only has control over life-support, engineering, and astrogation. Security and long range communication aren’t included.
“I’ve made the decision to assume that our conversations inside my quarters are secure—it seems contra productive and impractical to do otherwise. Silva also said that we might be able to get a message back to Earth from the planet we’re approaching but we would all know more once we arrived.”
The Major turned to Iron Jaw, “Mike, any progress on figuring out how to control this ship?”
Shaking his head Iron Jaw said, “No. We found a lot of rooms but no controls anywhere. Sorry Matt but I think taking control of the ship is a no-go.”
“Ok, it was always a long shot anyway.”
Changing the subject the Major continued, “Toni believes that we’re headed to a planet called Stiger.”
I quickly interjected, “Captain Silva mentioned that name also.”
“According to Toni the Stigerians are not a Dynasty; they’re simply a planet bound society that enjoys autonomy. There is, however, a small Coridian presence on the planet including a well-respected woman named Semi.”
“The Coridians have also requested to take possession of our Noridian captive once we make planetfall. I agreed; I don’t know what else we’d do with him and I certainly don’t want to leave him on the ship.
“For that matter,” continued the major. “I don’t want anyone staying on the ship tomorrow. As much as possible I want the team staying together when we’re dirt side. That means maintaining sight lines with at least two other members of the team at all times—spread the word.
“In addition I want to know more about this Stigerian society. Any questions?” he asked.
“Ok, I’ve got a feeling we’re getting a lot closer to being able to understand our situation and once we do we can start making our plans.”
If it wasn’t for the view screens we would never have known we’d landed. All morning they’d been showing an approaching green, brown and blue planet, then orbit, then planetfall.
The screens were now filled on one side with a curious landscape of thinly trunked trees with leaves ranging from dark blue-green to a funny shade of lime. Until you got used to it, it played havoc with your depth perception.
Our ship was sitting in a large clearing at the crux of what appeared to be a medium sized ‘V’ shaped valley. The mountains on the two opposing sides were relatively small and covered with foliage while the third side that formed the apex of the ‘V’ (where we were) was filled with a steep sided monstrosity that towered above the tree line and disappeared into the clouds.
On the fourth side, stretched out slightly below us on the floor of the widening valley was what had to be a city. There were no skyscrapers or smokestacks; as a matter of fact you had to look hard to really see all the structures. Everything blended in and there were beautiful buildings built right into the sides of some of the valley walls, complete with multi-story glass walls and sweeping curves. Except for the buildings themselves there was little in the way of concrete or its equivalent. There were few if any noticeable streets and no parking lots. If you looked closely you could notice two and three story buildings sitting on the perfectly manicured valley floor amidst so many trees and foliage that it reminded you of the ancient Mayan city of Palenque in Mexico—except there was no indication of ruin. Everything was pristine.
Captain Silva was guiding us and Toni was along to answer as many questions as she could although she had admitted to never visiting this particular planet before.
So we had all travelled down to what I was thinking of as the Garage Level of the ship and Captain Silva was showing us where the hovering car things were stored.
Shortly, forty-nine Earthers, two Coridians, and one bruised Noridian were slowly floating down onto the valley floor.
As we came into the city center we realized just how far apart the buildings were from each other. We were also getting our first look at non-dynasty aliens and except for the clothing I didn’t think they looked much different.
Many people were on foot seemingly enjoying a very nice day; we didn’t see anyone running or otherwise in a hurry. There were a few hover cars similar to ours but I finally realized what stood out the most for me; the lack of people. Unless they all lived underground or something this had to be the most sparsely populated city I’d ever been in.
Also lending to the feeling of a low population density was a curious phenomenon I was noticing; whether on foot or in a hover car other people were getting out of our way, sometimes well in advance of us.
We eventually more or less took a left turn and I realized we were heading towards one of the glass-walled edifices that were built into the side of the valley. As we got closer to it I could see large open-air areas on the ground level with multi-car sized openings leading deeper inside.
We parked under the overhang of the edifice itself and walked through a permanently open foyer and were greeted by three beautiful (of course) young women who turned out to be native Stigerians.
There were other people in the rather large foyer but again I got the impression of emptiness. Maybe I had just gotten used to living on Earth with her eight billion people but this definitely felt different.
Captain Silva suggested that the group might enjoy some local refreshments and two of our greeters hurried away to presumably accommodate him. They didn’t run or look harried, but they were definitely moving faster than anyone else I’d seen so far.
I was busy looking at our surroundings and just paying attention to Captain Silva and our Stigerian hostesses with what I had come to think of as my peripheral senses. I have always had the ability to focus on something without losing awareness of other things; for example I was calculating that this foyer had a two-story high ceiling and held enough fountains, sofas, chairs, and tabled alcoves to seat around 200 people when I heard our Stigerian hostess explain that Semi was off planet.
She then offered to take us up to the Coridian section.
As several Stigerians arrived carrying trays with what looked like local juices Major Reagan determined that he along with me, Julie, Dr. Decker, Hiromi and Kamiko would go upstairs with Captain Silva, Toni, and the non-talkative Noridian.