Equus Seven

Holly Elbertson had gone through four years of college and spent the last seven years using that degree. The past week had been spent analyzing a dandelion to verify its identity as a dandelion.

It was an insult, to be certain, but the kind of professionally harmless insult that probably came from a good place. That was Alan's leadership in a nutshell. Professional skeptic, missing the forest for the trees. Unthinkable to imagine that a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere could produce Earth-like plants. He didn't mean to insult her by making her analyze what was a dandelion on all but an atomic level, but he was making her analyze a dandelion.

They had slipped into a system while she was asleep, having long since gotten used to the quiet rock and pull of the ship. She wasn't sure what its name had been before they got here, that wasn't really her field of research. What she did know is that somebody had misheard their location and thought they were in the Horsehead nebula, so they called the system Equus. Despite the error, the name was catching on a lot faster than "Kappa-Delta 302". Barring a drastic and sudden change in the human condition that made people stop favoring catchy if erroneous titles, it was gonna be Equus throughout the ship by the end of the week. Then Equus in the history books and star charts by the end of the month as a result. Iceland and Greenland could probably sympathize... if monumental landmasses could sympathize with arbitrarily measured sections of the universe.

Equus was a pretty small and limited system, but they were doing some deeper probing than usual because one of the planets rested in the sweet spot. Sun was the right size, the planet was the right distance from it, the atmosphere was at least comparable, according to quick scans. Deeper scans would follow, barring something that could punch through a suit, you'd get a landing crew soon after. If the deep scans were good enough, they might even try sniffing the air, then spending a week in the medbay as a result. The potentially habitable planet became Equus Prime, even though it was neither the first nor the largest planet in the system. It was a very human way to categorize reality, measuring things by their relationship to human experience. Fahrenheit could relate... if systems of measurement could relate to celestial bodies.

The dandelion had been retrieved by an automated probe. It was notable for two reasons. Firstly, because it was a plant from an alien world. And secondly, because the probe had not been intended to take back plant samples. It had come back as part of the soil sample. The softy in her told her that meant the probe had an appreciation for beauty. The scientist in her told her that it meant the surface was so rich with plant life that there had been no way to get a cleaner sample. Looking out the viewport in the main observation bay, she had never seen a planet so damn green. It mixed with the blues of the ocean, making it look even more vibrant than the old pictures of Earth before things had started to really fall apart. If it was possible for planets to look alive, Equus prime looked alive. The quick scans didn't show any mega-structures or any artificial materials. It still looked new and natural. Of course, the absence of what their civilization considered "signs of intelligent life" didn't rule out the presence of intelligent life. There was a hard and fast rule against settling planets in a way that would push out indigenous intelligent life. European colonists could relate... well actually, no they couldn't.

No matter how she looked at it, scanned it, smelled it, cut it, or tasted (off the record, obviously) it, it was a dandelion. There was no surer sign of confidence or suicidal impulses in a scientist than tasting lab material. She was now very confident it was a dandelion, though the taste was different, far sweeter. She had kept antibiotics on hand, but she was determined not to go to medbay if she got sick. If she died licking alien plants, that was her own damn business. Fortunately, or maybe, unfortunately, she had not become the first human being to die from some sort of alien supervirus.

Alan popped in the doorway, caught her flicking the dandelion disinterestedly.

"Anything new?"

She flicked the dandelion all the way off of the table, "It's still a dandelion, sir."

He watched it hit the floor with some concern but ignored it. "Good news then, xenobiology is being asked for a botanist to send planetside."

Her eyes widened, "Botany? Are we sending that many people down?"

"Small team, I figured since you now know the most about the planet's plants, you would be the best candidate."

"That means-"

He nodded, "It's all green."

***

The descent planetside was comfortable, it would be the one coming back that made her feel like she was being buttered onto the back of her seat. She was one of three in the shuttlecraft, small team had not been an exaggeration. It was her, one of the lug-heads from survival, and one of the perverts from linguistics. The survivalist stole glances out of the window constantly, even as the pressure and light of the high atmosphere made the material darken to near-translucent. The linguist seemed to be doing some kind of mantra against his fear, just like a glorified English major to be deathly afraid of flying. Of course, even in her head, that was all good-natured ribbing between departments. Except for the evolutionary psychologists, those guys were freaks.

A hollow text-to-speech voice flatly read her the findings of the deep scans through an earpiece. Lots of stuff she didn't get much mileage out of, rock density and elevation levels. Some of it she found interesting if a bit useless, like how the gravity was ever so slightly lower. Not enough to go bouncing around but enough that a potential colony would probably evolve a few inches taller over time. Then the good stuff, most of which was in jargon she would be expected to translate down for her non-biologist comrades.

"Spore and toxin checks have all been coming up clean." She summarised for them, "Nobody has tried breathing it yet, but the computer says it's safe if one of you is feeling brave."

She gestured more at the survivalist, she didn't expect the linguist to be in a very brave mood considering how buried he was in his seat. The survivalist nodded.

"That's what I'm here for, that and keeping us safe."

"We're landing near a sort of rainforest. It's too dense for any life readings to be reliable, so be on guard. But, and I'm only going to say this once, if you fire on any natives without good reason, I will absolutely submit your head as a peace offering."

He nodded, muttering about it not being his first rodeo under his breath.

"That goes for you too," She nodded at the linguist, who wasn't listening. "You keep that knife in your belt."

He continued to not listen as they broke cloud level, the windows of the cabin lightening and clearing. A glance outside showed a world of greens and blues down below. The rockiest of the flight had passed, the linguist didn't relax. When they touched down, he looked about ready to rip off his helmet and kiss the grass. Which, according to her readings, was kinda just... grass.

The survivalist popped the seals on his helmet, sliding it off and taking a single deep inhale. A few seconds passed and he breathed at a more normal rate, turning to his partners and shrugging.

"It smells like a farm, but it's air."

Holly popped her own seals, she had licked a plant, no reason to start being paranoid now. The first breath of air on an unclaimed planet was sweet, warm, and humid. A cool breeze cut through the dampness of it. No doubt this was a temperate wet zone, a great place for biodiversity among other things. It also smelled like a barn. The linguist kept his helmet on, either in paranoia or because he didn't favor the smell of livestock. Both rational takes, both easy to overcome through the excitement of the circumstances. She set her helmet inside the shuttle, sealing it behind them. She stepped down to the shore of the river they had landed near, taking a sample of the water. It scanned clean of contaminants, though the bacteria would be another thing entirely. She took a sip.

"Lady, you're more adventurous than me."

She swirled it around, it was a little bitter, likely mineral-rich. She swallowed it anyway, it was nice to taste some water not recycled from waste or farmed in a hydroponics lab.

"One needs at least a slight **** wish to get things done," She mused, "Being the first person to die from some alien parasite is still an achievement worth noting."

"That mean you'd fuck an alien if you got the chance?"

"If it consented, certainly. I wouldn't Captain Kirk it, but I'm not opposed to being courted by some green-skinned beauty."

The survivalist looked at her somewhat confusedly, the linguist finally seemed to swallow his nausea to cut in "That one might be out of his wheelhouse."

"Perhaps because he'd Captain Kirk it."

The survivalist grunted "I know what Star Trek is ya jackasses. You think anybody signing up for a mission like this wouldn't?"

"I was always more of a Lexx guy." The linguist droned.

"I guess linguists really are all perverts." Holly chimed, getting a quick laugh from the survivalist and an only slightly defensive one from the linguist.

The survivalist went by John, he seemed either unwilling or uninterested in sharing a family name. The linguist, now that they could get two words out of him without him forming the sign of the cross or turning green, was Paul. He seemed equally uninterested in sharing his last name, though it seemed like he only considered that as an idea when John had dug in on keeping quiet about his. It was a silly little game some of them played, one Holly was more interested in discovering the new world around them than playing to completion. She started to approach the treeline of the river valley, the foliage turning deep and impenetrably dark quickly within eyesight. Before she could even finish approaching the treeline, she caught sight of movement among the green.

"We may have company," She radioed to the two men, but the crackle of their receivers was close behind her.

"We saw it too."

Paul stepped beside her, "Hold your arms open, belly out. Means the same thing to animals and people."

Holly adopted his weird sort of shrugging gesture, John held behind them, hand on his weapon.

The figure poked closer and closer to them slowly. It seemed to scan them, what it was thinking was impossible to know. When it finally poked its head into the light, it was an odd sort of human and non-human mixture. Too much of one to fully be the other. The eyes sat a weird half-point between the front and sides of its head. Long pointed ears poking up from high on the sides. The skin seemed to be covered in a sort of thin almost peach-fuzz brown fur. It seemed young, but it couldn't have been anything under 2 meters tall. The body was long and thin, though sinewy muscle bulged under the skin of the limbs. Perhaps the closest comparison in Holly's head was some sort of upright horse or mythical satyr, though how much of that subconsciously came from the name Equus was hard to say. The two-legged wobble it moved with seemed deeply uncertain, but there was a piercing amount of intelligence to the eyes.

"Weh-neh! Keh-nem!" It called cautiously. Its voice rumbled low in its throat. The stretched nature of the face making for low but powerful sounds.

"You wanna get to translating?" John grumbled.

Even though the eye placement suggested at least some mixture of predator and prey, there was no aggression to the face. Making it seem almost sweet. That didn't keep it from sizing them up, and the sharp stone tool in its hand was a steady reminder that things were still on edge.

"Going to need a bit more to work with."

Holly took a step forward, watching the creature tense but not fall back. She waited for it to relax, then took another step. She repeated this, never pushing far enough to make the creature step away until she was close enough that it could have reached her with its tool if it hand wanted to. She kept her posture open the whole time, mostly in that same shrugging gesture. When she was close to the thing, close enough for it to reach with the tool at its waist but not close enough to reach with an arm, it halted her with a raised hand and a noise of protest. It stepped to her, circling and prodding carefully, she held still and let it, even when it poked her chest casually.

"You're doing good, try to get it talking," Paul buzzed in her earpiece.

"Should I ask it what its favorite band is?" Holly murmured back.

"Find something to share names with, getting a sense of the speech conventions goes a long way for learning how the language works."

Holly waited for the circling to stop, then gestured broadly at herself. "Holly. Holly."

It looked at her quizzically, but there seemed to be a recognition of what she intended. It pointed at her. "Hoo-Lay."

"Deep vowels, but a nasal squeak. Likely the result of large lungs and the long narrowed face. The language will probably be based on short phonemes, no clicks or lip-heavy words. "

She made a similar gesture at the alien but ended it with a sort of questioning motion. It nodded. "Moh-Loh."

"I don't know if you guys forgot, but we're not the first contact team," John mumbled.

Holly especially, despite her curiosity, was a little tired of being prodded. "We got some of what we came for, we should head back and get the proper channels open."

"You guys go ahead, if I go back on, they're never letting me back down here." Paul buzzed.

"You're not staying here alone." John shot back.

"Is that a promise or a threat, leatherneck?"

Holly realized Paul's point, whether or not she was going to admit it. As soon as the first contact protocol went in, just about every professional aboard was going to be putting in a request to go planetside. Holly was not the most qualified biologist aboard, nor the most expendable. Realistically, she had the choice of sucking it up and putting up with a few nights of camping or likely kissing the planet's surface goodbye permanently. She pressed her finger to her earpiece.

"Paul, go radio first contact to the ship, John, get us as good as you can make before the sun sets. I'm not sleeping in that landing craft."

The creature watched their scurry of activity, seemingly annoyed at no longer being the center of attention. By the time they had a decent little camp, it had disappeared into the forest.

Less than two hours later, a dozen streaking lights filled the sky in intervals of thirty minutes, going on through the whole of the night.