Jack helped Kris on with her gauntlets and helmet, then Kris did the same for him. Chief Beni was paired with the Resolute's communications officer, the same tech who'd upped the gain on their sensors last cruise.
Captain Drago had offered four strong backs to do the fetching and carrying. Abby had suggested that she might fill one of those slots. Kris had considered her options and decided she'd rather have her group made up of four knowns to balance the unknown loyalty of the ship's personnel.
''That assumes anyone knows where Abby's loyalties lie,'' Jack muttered darkly, but since he made no stronger objections, Kris waved Abby aboard.
With everyone suited and checked out, Kris had them crack the shuttle's hatch. The air that came in was breathable, but laden with a wide selection of pollen, bugs, and the likes, enough to make Jack remark: ''Now ain't you glad you're breathing canned air?''
Kris shrugged—a comment lost in full armor—and stepped into water up to her knees. She waded through muck and vegetation to the beach. All ashore, she closed up the ship and looked around.
The place was green. Green of leaf and branch. Even most of what passed for tree trunks were green. Some were brown, a few appeared purple. Strange sounds came from the mikes mounted to the outside of their suits. Within their sight, nothing larger than a small fly moved. While two ship's crew tied the shuttle to solid-looking trees, Kris sent probes down the path they intended to take to Site One. When they reported back nothing that seemed worth worrying about, Kris led off.
''Who did that?'' came on net.
''What?'' Kris asked.
''I just got hit by a rock. Anyone throw it?'' No one had.
''Let's go, crew, but take your time. Head's up.'' Two of the crew carried low-power lasers for clearing path. Abby and another crewwoman had M-6 weapons at the ready. Kris had two automatics strapped to her suit, but was more interested in looking than shooting. ''Nelly, use audio and visuals to examine our situation. I want to know immediately if you see anything that looks intelligent or hostile.''
''Or both,'' Nelly added. ''I am at least as interested as you are, Kris. And so far I see bushes moving in the wind. I see small animals that shouldn't be able to throw a rock. I don't see anything else.''
Something on six legs that reached about to Kris's knees turned the path's corner and trotted toward them. It took a half dozen steps, froze, and raised a snout with four curling tusks. Kris stared into two small eyes that stared back at her.
''Nelly, some noise please. All the speakers will take.''
There was a loud screech. All around them, winged things took to the air. In front of Kris, the situation didn't change. As Kris slowly reached for her automatic, Abby came on net.
''Let me try this,'' she said, and a large stone arched over Kris's shoulder to land in front of the critter. It bounced once, and would have hit the thing, but it made a noise all its own and bolted into the green shrub beside the trail.
''I figured it might not know about an M-6,'' Abby drawled. ''But if someone was throwing rocks, that might do the trick.''
Kris stooped to pick up some rocks. Soon, anyone who didn't have his hands full with black-box gizmos had a couple of rocks. Two crewmen talked about a slingshot and how they might make one out of what they had on hand. Since most of it involved cannibalizing their suits, slingshots remained just talk.
The path split in two, but the place Kris wanted was straight ahead. The laser cutters took over, making trail. They took another rock as they left the trees.
''Nelly?''
''I only saw the latter part of the rock's trajectory. Who- or whatever threw it was in the trees.''
They stood for a long minute, eyeing the tree line they'd have to cross to get back to the shuttle, but nothing moved out of what they had already determined was ''the ordinary.''
They crossed the six-foot-high grass as quickly as they could. Ahead, the gray spire gave them something to aim for. What it may once have been was impossible to say, but it was tall, and thin, and looked very well worn. Yet it stood.
They broke out of the grass to find themselves walking over broken stones or maybe shattered concrete. Cracks allowed for tiny invasions of growth.''
''A million years old and it looks this good,'' someone said.
''The road between the stars wasn't the only road the Three made,'' Kris said.
And a rock bounced across her path.
''I saw that!'' Abby said.
''What was it?''
''It looked like a string of oversize jelly beans on centipede legs. Only the first two legs were throwing things. It disappeared into that pile of rocks,'' Abby said, waving her rifle's snout to the left of the column.
''Let's not shoot anything we don't have to,'' Kris said.
''It didn't look like anything a big-game hunter would want to mount on her mantelpiece, anyway,'' Abby said. ''Leastwise none of the hunters I worked for.''
''I just don't want them mounting my head on their mantelpiece,'' Beni said.
''Let's keep all 360 degrees covered,'' Jack said. ''You two at the tail. You're the back door.''
Kris turned to find that the rear of the column was already walking backward, rifle or pistol up, covering the rear. Nice to find field craft like that among merchant sailors.
Yeah, right, Nelly muttered in Kris's brain. I can add two and two as well as any human.
Down girl. Don't look a gift horse under the armpit as our captain says.
Yes, but I hope you will do a better job of checking the hooves of any Greek gift horses we now stumble among.
That's a good one, Nelly. Now concentrate on the present problem. We can't afford to burn more than one bridge at a time.
''There's one,'' Nelly said, and Kris got a fleeting look at what was tossing things their way. And sidestepped the latest rock to come at them.
It did and didn't look like one of the Three. Grampa Ray's ''download'' from Santa Maria of some of the records from the Three showed three distinct species. One, the strangest, was a segmented species that started as one section of tubing, then added more as it grew. It didn't grow them, but attached other singletons. Adults might have five or as many as seven segments, though there did appear to be one picture of an eight. For obvious reasons, they'd become known as the Caterpillar People.
Beyond that, people didn't agree on much about this weird species. ''You sure we aren't trying to figure them out from say, a Donald Duck cartoon. How much about humans would a classical Road Runner and Coyote snippet tell you?'' was a question Kris found funny when she was a kid.
Now, looking at something that didn't fit the expected, she had to wonder just how much she knew… or needed to unlearn.
''Keep your eyes peeled,'' she ordered. ''Let me know if you see one of those things with more than three segments.''
''You think we've found one of the Three?'' Jack asked.
''Or what it looks like after a million more years of evolution,'' Kris answered.
''Evolution?'' Abby said, ''or de-evolution? This place don't look like the place I'd want my great-to-the-nth-degree-grand-kids to be living in.'' Abby had a point. That point was emphasized when Kris spotted one of the critters in question defecate, pick up the droppings, and hurl them at her crew. That one missed, but not the next one.
''You know, Princess,'' Chief Beni said, trying to scrape the muck off the leg of his battle suit with a large green leaf, ''I don't think they much like us.''
''Kind of looks that way,'' Abby agreed.
They reached the edge of the greensward. Ahead lay a series of rock piles. On closer look, they turned out to be less of a jumble. Kris could make out the underlying walls, many of them cracked but still standing. Inside you could see open spaces, shaded by only a few stunted trees or shrubs that had found footing.