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Journal; J. Doom, Mission time: -2.23 kiloseconds

Horizon Summit Operation has sent me on, perhaps, 20 different expeditions thus far. Each expedition has been separated by no less than 50 years and no more than 200. When I first took this job in 2121, my biology work was living off grants. I have to admit that science at large wasn't very accepting of a theoretical biologist.

That changed quickly when I was approached by HSO. At that point, they were a nonprofit science foundation concerned with space colonization. They hired me as a scout, a field scientist. Well, it's been almost a millennia real-time since then. I'm not really sure what Horizon Summit is anymore.

But, they're shipping me to alien planets for free and asking me to study and catalog everything about their biospheres. I'm not sure who's sending me so far around the galaxy, but it's worth it!

This, though, seems to be the biggest find yet. It's a full biological hotzone. We haven't found one since Earth. Of course, it couldn't become a colony for any Normals. They'd die of anaphylactic shock the moment they breathed the pathogen-saturated air. I think, perhaps, that I wasn't sent here as a colonial scout. There's some other reason I'm here.

The Further I get from home, the further I fall down the rabbit hole

Dr. Julia Doom

***

"Good evening, Doctor Doom."

Julia loved it when people used her proper title. She wanted to impishly grin, but she was currently in blackout.

"This is Horizon Summit Operation. We're configuring your landing chassis and wished to prompt your input for the sake of optimization"

The data she'd been browsing streamed away and was replaced with a single mock-up. It depicted a rigid figure with arms leveled with the horizon. Oddly enough, this time, it was specifically female, and a bio graft.

She thought out her reply. "May I enquire as to the necessity of a biological base for this body?"

"It is due to mission specific parameters. The danger posed to you is extremely minimal. Our pre-emptive consideration also led us to assigning you an adjunct. He will be arriving with you to provide aid and mutual assistance in hazardous situations."

HSO was always overt, always clear. Julia got the feeling he â€" it â€" never actually lied. But, truths could be omitted. Whether this was a form of guile or an accident on the part of HSO, she wasn't sure. All the same, she was always granted more than enough resources to work with -- Hence; the adjunct.

Julia's response was silence. Horizon Summit never asked for anything in return, including a thank-you.

Instead, she busied herself with the body. It was primarily ur-human, save the skin-toned augmentation grafts replacing her shoulders and the overt connection ports at the back of her neck. That would never do.

She called up a hair-fab program she'd used for a pet cat once and ran it in earthy black. Hair flung itself from the chassis' skin, obscuring just about everything mechanical about her.

"Lovely" she thought to herself. But, she had a whole laundry list of improvements she wished to make.

An infinite or infinitesimal amount of time later, she'd managed to hit the most important ones. She now had evolved, articulated ears, a tail for balance, and a giant, blue exclamation point across her soon-to-be belly. She grinned to herself. What better body to explore nature in than a giant kitty-person?

She blipped the design back at HSO. "Very good," the deracinated voice echoed through her thoughts. "You show a knack for optimization, subject Julia Doom, Doctor. Your modifications are accepted. Flash and defrost will begin shortly."

***

Of course, Horizon Summit had very subjective ideas of ‘shortly.' Julia had completed three treatis papers by the time she was dumped from her interface and into a real sensorium.

It was always something akin to walking out of a movie theater at noon. The sudden stimuli were maddeningly overbearing. Her eyes ached with each blink of the distant console lights of a control deck on the far wall. The hiss of the fabrication units around her was like a freight train rolling by. Worse yet was the acute bitterness on her nose and tongue.

She coughed up nutrient fluid from her new lungs, leaving caramel-colored spatter on the glass ahead of her. Wetness left her dainty feet just as a blast of comparably fresh air washed across her face.

As the chamber around her popped its seals with a mighty hiss, a familiar voice spoke up from a speaker over her head. "Good morning subject; Julia Doom, Doctor. The Higarashi will make orbit in five minutes. Please proceed at your leisure to the departure sector."

The sectioned façade of the fab' chamber parted lazily ahead of her. The air that reached her reeked of oil... and another scent. It was another warm body! For a moment, she lusted to find the source. It was the result of some basal instinct in the body mingling with her curiosity, she imagined.

This body could give her trouble. Perhaps she'd made it too well adapted to the work ahead.

She was stricken with the cold of the place as she took her first steps outward. It wasn't particularly well designed for her sort. Truthfully its only purpose was manfuacture, even in an aesthetic sense. She couldn't find anywhere to look where there wasn't some piece of almost peculiarly advanced machinery going about its business.

She had one final stop before she proceeded. In spite of the lack of major lighting, Julia knew where to go.

A few steps to her right and she found purchase on a metal handle next to the fabber from which she'd emerged. Force of habit told her how to pull the handle just so to open the ‘locker.'

Of course, Julia knew it was just another assembler, even if HSO called it a locker. There was no reason to further burden this ship with an even greater load of premade material. Most everything was made on site, instead.

That included the nano-musculature skinsuit she'd baked while waiting to be instantiated. She pulled the fabric from its perch and flipped it flat. As she attempted to slip in, though, she discovered her pelt had other ideas.

She grunted and growled with frustration as she fought to slip the suit up her legs. As she was just getting her shoulder in, she heard a noise behind her.

She turned, wide eyed, to see a young man. He wasn't externally modified, save a collar with data ports and a set of dog tags.

He timidly offered a smile. "Sorry to bother you," he said. "It sounded like you needed some help." Of course, the best perverts could be cordial.

She had been planning to scowl, but the man's voice was stopping her. It sounded timid and fragile, so much so she couldn't bring herself to any further disquiet. Instead; she offered a crestfallen grunt. "I don't think I know you well enough for that," she said. "I'm naked and trying to slip on a catsuit. I mean, doesn't that strike you as somewhat private?" He frowned, accepting what he was told. She supposed her wit and honesty served her more than it failed her. She finally slipped the last of the suit over her arm.

The suit was a scholarly kaki. That sort of thing made her feel her inner doctor Livingston... and it felt good. She grinned.

"Suit" she thought.

"Good evening, madam. How may I assist?"

"Close."

"Very well, madam." The spiraling, naofiber musculature of the suit twisted down over her body. It assuredly gripped down over her every feature. She was still feeling some amount of sense-daze so, when it finally contacted her most sensitive points, she shivered. "I trust that was not a shiver of disquiet?" It asked, calm and attentive.

"No, not really," the thought was unsure, she knew. She'd never quite gotten use to kit that could think and talk back to her. Especially when it did that sort of thing while wrapped around her unprotected body. Funny, she wondered if any other humans had the trouble.

"My purpose is to ease your time on assignment, madam. Do mention any disquiet caused by me or any other pertinent purposes and I will be sure you are given clear options for rectification."

"Thanks, suit." She popped her shoulders and swung her head around. The joints still had some kinks from lack of use.

"That's quite all right, madam." The suit said. Julia began to walk, passing the young man by and heading in the general direction of the departure deck. The suit spoke again, after a lengthy pause. "And, madam, there's one more thing I'd like to add."

"Yes, suit?" she thought.

"It's good to be back." She smiled. Suit had been her traveling companion since defrost 10. Whether or not her body had issues with it, they'd grown on each other.

Starting parallel to her feet, a train of floor lighting turned on. She knew they were meant to be kind on her eyes, but the new brightness was still unsettling. The lights animated along their track in such a way that they seemed to streak off around a corner ahead of her.

"This is Horizon Summit Operation. I have appraised general readiness. Please proceed according to the path delineated by the floor lighting to the ventral docking ring."

She raised her voice and spoke aloud. "C'mon, kid," she barked over her shoulder. "Time to go for a ride."

He ran up behind her before she could start walking. "You know where we're going? I couldn't make sense of the mission documentation in the archives. Could you?"

She huffed, indignant. "I'm a bloody xenobiologist, of course I could!" She glanced over at him again, then recognized why she'd been so initially put off when he showed up.

He was naked.

She glanced to her right, spying another locker further along. "Suit," she thought. "Query factory locker TA-3F1E. This man needs a pair of clothes." She began to saunter along, past the orgy of plastic dust-covers and bare piping, toward the locker.

"By your guidance, madam."

The locker started working and, by the time she'd arrived, it had spat out a cotton tee-shirt and some jeans. She grabbed them as she passed and threw them at the kid.

"So sorry, kid," she said, her tone anything but concilliatory. "Looks like you're going commando." There weren't any skivvies in that particular pile of clothes.

"I've been through worse," he said. "New Zanzibar, 2810." She turned. She had been on one of the New Zanzibar teams! Her angular eyes narrowed as she looked him over. The sequential lights, providing almost violently intermittent lighting, weren't making it easy. She couldn't make a connection between his face and that op'.

"Really?" she pressed, skeptical.

"Yeah, team three, under Jones 5 Watson." Paydirt! So, he knew Jones. So did she! That was good enough. She nodded and let her frown slacken.

"What were you," she asked.

"Well, I was â€" I am â€" a gaffer."

Hmm, now why did Horizon Summit think she needed to have someone with that kind of knowledge helping her? Maybe they wanted to do more than cartography and cataloging. They wanted a cloud of recording equipment on sight. The question was; why?

"Huh," she wondered aloud.

"We really shouldn't be late," he insisted after a long pause.

"Operation won't mind. I get the feeling it's got all the time in the world."

"Does it matter either way?"

"If you're in such a hurry," she turned. "Then; fine."

Having finally managed to reach some shared directive, they proceeded along the path highlighted by the floor lighting, retreating away like a marching line of wil-o-the-wisps.

***

Chapter One: POINT INSERTION

***

"So," Julia began. "I take it you've blasted in before?"

"Is..." he began "is that some kind of innuendo?" Most of the interior lights choked off, save a few dim, indirect fixtures buried in the hull plating.

She growled, frustrated. "No," she said. "I mean; have you ever been conscious through a de-orbit run?"

"Oh... right." It seemed to Julia like this man was most likely pictured in the Metadictionary entry on "space cadet (1950-2050 AD)." To think anyone this non-savvy still existed!

Julia pulled the straps from the sides of her chair and snapped them home. She heard the boy-man beside her doing the same. It was refreshing to know he was good for something.

In the meantime, she'd have to find out why he was so... non-misogynist. It had to be an act.

Perhaps, though, it was all a figment of her imagination. That particular aspect of her had been raised to be paranoid within a male dominated academic culture. Sure, most of her colleagues were cordial on the surface. But, she'd overheard backtalk that they'd imagined as surreptitious. It had always been positively venomous.

Remembering some particular occasions of that sort, she sighed and shook her head. Her rise in the academic fields had been a piric victory â€" until Horizon Summit Operation recruited her.

Julia's eyes went wide with surprise as her world began to list. She and her peculiar adjunct were slowly being repositioned to stare skyward. The door through which they'd entered slid shut in several converging sections. Flying cars of science fiction past be damned! What would they ever do without their overly-sophisticated space door?

"Launch routines activated. The K.M.L.V. will be released in twenty seconds," a twittery, synthetic voice said. "Please remember this is a non-smoking disposable-re-entry vehicle..."

Julia rolled her eyes, trying to imagine who, exactly, was stupid enough to light up inside a compressed oxygen air supply â€" thus necessitating that warning.

"...In addition," the voice went on after a series of a dozen or so warnings. "Please refrain from the chewing of plasticized, flavor and glucose populated compounds, gum, as it will not ease the pressure differentials involved with atmospheric return. Thank you."

There was a stomach-shaking thump and the whine of hydraulics. Outside the upper windows, the ceiling began to retreat skyward. Wall moutned navigation lights retreated upward at increasing speeds.

"All passengers prepare for high-g transfer orbit maneuver. Ship detachment in ten..." She yawned as the voice counted down the seconds. In spite of herself; she tensed in anticipation as they passed zero. The interior lighting cut briefly, leaving them with the blue tinted illumination of the docking collar they were now retreating from. As it fell away, more became visible. The space ringed the Higarashi like the fronds of a cheap, metal Christmas tree â€" a cone stacked upon a cone with the intervening space between forming the launch deck of the massive structure.

There was another basso-thump. The exit shaft above them spun away lazily until they were staring at a dark, starlit sky. A moment later, interior lighting came up again.

"Launch umbilical cut. Operating system re-initialization successful," the interior lighting resumed its intended function as if nothing had happened. "Hard line power and communications with command vessel Higarashi lost. Internal power boot successful. LASER and short-wave radio contact with Higarashi established."

As their choked view spun, it revealed the Higarashi's form slice by minute slice. The ship was a huge intersystem lugger. Julia wasn't sure quite what made it go. But, she assumed it was either very efficient or very fast. Or; perhaps it was both. Her best estimates put it at no less than a kilometer in length, perhaps more. Space was never a good provider of frames of reference.

The ship had a vague, lance-like shape. As the planet below came into view above their heads, the ship seemed to hover over the blue pearl of the planet. It to Julia like some massive, alien monument jutting from the planet's surface; drab, gray, unchanging.

The spin stabilized, bringing Julia back to the present. "Approach vector established." Julia was getting an impression this voice wasn't capable of any meaningful conversational intercourse, save status warnings. It was very droll â€" and very much a staple of far too many systems used by the Higarashi.

That particular metal hulk began to fall away as if it were outrunning them. "Atmospheric contact in twenty seconds, deceleration engaged." Julia yawned, watching the man beside her fidget and look every which way. He looked positively apprehensive.

"Haven't you done this before?" she asked. There was a growing rumble from below. It reminded Julia of when she'd ridden her car through an automated wash. It was a throaty rumble that reverberated all around her.

"Yeah," he admitted. There was a certain, detectable strain to his voice. The hull began to shake amidst the atmospheric bombardment. He cringed and gritted his teeth as he strained out his next workds. "But I'll never get used to it!" he croaked.

They spent the next few moments in silence.

"Hey," he said, face still taut with tension as he spoke. "Aren't you going to say something?" She didn't. "I mean, you're so talkative-"

"Oh," she yelled over the roar of supersonic atmospheric resistance. "NOW you're mister attentive. You're muter than a Moai statue, until you get scared?"

"You haven't exactly given me the best reception..." the rumbling continued to rise.

"Oh, excuse me, sir. Would you like a mint on your pillow in place of a formal apology?"

At that moment, the high-speed chutes popped and both occupants of the passenger pod were punched in the stomach by hard acceleration. The conversation, understandably, ceased.

The next set of main parachutes popped soon after. The cadre of three parasols continued the onslaught of deceleration. Julia always felt as though she were suddenly zooming upward in these sort of situations.

"Entry phase complete," the warbly voice said. "Initiating atmospheric deployment."

Things had grown quiet, prompting Julia to sigh as her chair was raised back into orientation with the floor. Below, there was a rapid-fire series of clangs, decreasing in frequency as she listened. Dispersed among that were the odd, swishing, squeaking vibrations of steel cables going taut.

"Main lifting frame deployment complete," the voice said. The straps surrounding the duo snipped out of their fittings. "Occupants may now proceed from observation deck to main hull."

"You heard the man..." Julia said -- though she had meant to sound firm, she ended on a rather limp note. "umm," she continued. "I mean computer... thing." A hatch hissed open between the seats.

She shrugged it off and rose from her chair. The man beside her managed his first scowl of the day. A joyous occasion though it may be, Julia squinted. "What?"

"I'm not going down there first," he said.

She could guess why he would WANT to. Luckily, she had a skinsuit. She preferred being partially lewdly dressed all over than being particularly lewd from an upward view. Nonetheless, she bit. "Why?"

"You'll accuse me of being a hoggish, pea-brained pervert!"

"Ooh, I think I'll save that one for future use!" she said, clapping her hands together. "Thanks, pea-brain!"

Having made him squirm a little more for his infraction during their speedy descent, she moved toward the hatch. As she stared downward, she was struck with mild vertigo. Or rather, had she been abhuman, she would have been. Instead, she was surprised to be undaunted by the extremely long corridor dropping sickeningly downward below her. Oddly; it looked very... bouncy.

"It's a Bloater Floater," she flatly declared, squaring her shoulders. A moment later, she'd begun her expectantly long descent, starting with the first rung of a very long ladder.

"A what?" he said above her as he followed her lead down the ladder.

"An inflated, lighter-than-air, non-rigid body airship."

"Oh," he said flatly.

They descended in relative silence from then on. Julia took the moment to take in her surroundings. They'd entered a long, transparent tube of some exotic plastic. The walls were held rigid by interlocking chambers of the material and by excessive inward pressure from the space surrounding the tunnel. Far beyond, sunlight filtered in through a beige fabric strung along a metal lattice. The lattice formed an arc of geodesic hexagons wherever she looked, separated by an occasional pentagon. She guessed it was a rigid, load-bearing dome-like.

Being such, it had inherent strength and had likely assembled itself soon after re-entry It explained all the noise after the chutes popped.

The fabric strung over it was probably InfernaTex, able to withstand all sorts of temperatures and gouging attempts. It was the main fabric surrounding the muscle bundles on her suit and the antibiotic covering around the interfaces for her augmentations. She'd never seen anything that could foil the stuff. It made her believe it was some kind of exotic nano-compound. She imagined it was the sort of thing that hadn't even been considered possible when she left earth.

She glanced upward. Instinct told her Happy Boy wanted to say something.

"Hey, umm-" hw began, limp.

Her voice was full of tension as she spoke. "What?" she stopped going down the ladder. For a moment, she was afraid he would be heedless and kick her in the back of the head as he continued downward. But, he'd noticed her pause in progress in time. That struck her as no small miracle.

"I'm sorry I've been such an idiot. I just don't have my wits about me like I used to. It's just..." He arched back and looked between his legs, noting that Julia had failed to snap at him. He appraised her expression of thought.

They briefly mirrored looks of revelation as they almost simultaneously realized they'd both been doing consecutive solo ops' before this mission and had failed to tell each other.

"Are you thinking what I am?" she asked.

"I think so," he said, vacuous.

"We're idiots," she replied.

"Correction; big idiots," he said in a flat tone.

***

"I don't think we ever exchanged names," Now that Julia had a hand free, she spared a moment to scratch the itch on her left ear. It twitched rebelliously as she was followed out of the bottom hatch by her adjunct. He hung for a moment on a high rung before letting go and dropping to the floor.

"Hmm," he said, a mild grin touching his lips. They'd both thawed slightly. He imagined it was a sort of delicate peace. It was one thing to deal with the pride of an academician. It was another issue to deal with that pride transmitted into someone old society expected him to objectify.

At first, he hadn't been sure whether she was a fundy' or among the liberated. He'd practically driven himself up a wall he was so unsure. Apparently, he wasn't completely alone in his anxiety. "I'm Tan," he said.

"Just Tan?" She pressed, notably persistent in Tan's view.

"Yeah, I'm twogee," second generation. "I was born on another ship, all virtual, but biologically human. Our names aren't exactly steeped in tradition."

"Parents?" she asked. This sort of thing absolutely fascinated her. She'd met, perhaps, a dozen twogees. She always pried when she could. Manners be damned, she was a scientist!

"Yes," he said. "I'm not a threegee, you know." Threegees were an enigma, wrapped in an unknown, candy coated in a riddle, to Julia. The candy-coated riddle made his way to one of the walls and found a small, analog identification device. Tan was familiar with it. It was a relic of the ship's human construction contractors â€" a key starter.

He pulled out his poly key from beneath its shirt. After unclipping it from a chain lanyard, he beamed the encrypted passcode over to the device. As it adapted its triggers, he slipped it onto the starter and turned.

"Augmented reality operating systems power on," the warbly voice said. "Detected two compatable subjects over WLAN. One controller."

"Oh," a cordial voice from somewhere on Julia's torso said. "Allow me."

"Ceding control..." the warbly voice said.

"It certainly took that bit-forsaken thing long enough to establish network contact," Suit said from the speakers embedded in the room's walls.

"Indeed," Julia said, her pitch warbling with the verbose complexity of an aristo'.

"Madam, are you mocking me?"

"No," she said, her voice normal. "Just trying to get into the whole Naturalist mode."

"Would Madam like a khaki felt hat so that she may free herself from the sun while adhering to standard dress-code for twentieth century era field scientists?"

Tan laughed, donning a grin of self-satisfaction.

"Thank you, Suit," she said. "But I'm fine."

"As you wish, Madam," he said. "Now initializing main Observatory display, navigation. External sensors coming on-line."

The imposing wall-pile of machines vanished and was replaced by an absolute blackness. It was traced by red and blue outlines and distance markers. Then, as if some great deity during a creation epic decided to pick up the crayons and get to work, the wire-frames transformed into terrain. The panoramic scene unfurled around them, as if an opaque curtain were lifted from their eyes. The twilight sun was just beginning to defract through the atmosphere,e casting a rainbow halo around the horizon.

"We are now holding altitude at half a kilometer above sea level. The main parachutes have been recovered."

Julia's jaw gaped. "You never cease to surprise me, Suit."

"I will take that as a compliment. Thank you," Suit said, cordial and professional. "Does Madam have any other immediate requests? Or, perhaps, Sir?"

"We need to prepare for alight on the surface," Tan said, meek in the presence of this new personality. "That's all I know for sure..." he walked toward the edge of the platform on which he and Julia stood. "Right over here," he pointed to a series of terraced deltas, ethereal in the distant fog of the Briin's twilight period. They were torn through by occasional rivulets and crossed with the orderly hills created by flowing water. "Just don't ask my about the whys â€" only the hows."

"Very good, Sir. If I require any specialist knowledge of Sir, I shall request it. May one be so curious as to ask your profession, Sir?"

"I'm a gaffer, extraordinaire."

"Extraordinaire," Suit seemed to roll the word. Tan imagined he was making a match in network databases to monetize his rank. "Yes, a fine rank indeed, Sir. At Madam's discretion and with Sir's direction, I will begin landing procedures."

Julia smiled triumphantly as Tan turned to her, confused. "Who's the boss, Suit?" she asked.

"You are, Madam. Assuming your absence, Sir may serve as such, given proper extenuating circumstances."

"Don't forget it," she said the words looking into Tan's eyes. He raised an eyebrow in confusion, making her chuckle. "I'm joking!" she said. "Now, let's get this landing op' started. It looks like we're going to have to set up a temporary beachhead down there."

"We're staying down THERE for the night?" Tan was skeptical of the idea, to say the least.

"That's an explicit mission directive, yes," she said as if it were a universal law of the land. "We're supposed to remain in intimate biological contact with the biosphere. I interpret that as getting supplies and living space from the land."

Tan sighed, defeated. "I was hoping for a hot meal for my first night out of blackout."

"Hmm," Julia wondered aloud. "I think that could be easily managed."

***

"Remember," Julia yelled toward the sky. "I'm going to make us some stone soup!"

"Okay!" Tan yelled back down. "I'll remember to put a dumb pot in the offload!"

They'd begun setup of a ramshackle camp-site. It wouldn't be so hard to get lifted down to the ground, save they had to bring a land vehicle to make travel feasible. Tan appeared to be seeing to that now.

He waved from a platform atop the lifting hook. He was tethered to the line, and the line appeared to now be tethered to a four-wheeled, terrestrial buggy. Of course, the wheels were like nothing she'd seen before. They looked to be made of rubberized bubble-wrap, scaled to an enormous size. They were mounted on swing-arms painted in flat white paint. As it was lowered, the entire contraption appeared to her like a pouncing earth predator, making a supple landing on the muddy grasslands on which she now stood.

The swing arms wheezed as the vehicle was dropped onto the ground. Tan jumped onto the rear, where she assumed the powerplant was housed.

"I call it the Mud Wolf," he said. "It was a personal project I fabbed in my free time."

"The name fits," she said, still vacuously regarding the weird machine.

"Now, miss live-off-the-land" he said. "How about that stone soup?"

***

"Damn!" Tan's strained voice echoed through the empty air of the night, accompanied by a rhythmic clicking of stones. Julia was using her tapidum lucidium to watch him work through the low light. "Light, damn you! I'm doing everything this survival manual says."

Julia pulled up the document, which took the form of a small card that fluttered into her hand. She pinched two opposite corners of the imaginary construct and pulled it open.

She took a few moments to find the section on fire starting. "The guide's wrong," she said. "Flint won't work in this humidity." She began to walk toward him. Much to her pleasure, he didn't seem to notice.

"Really?"

"I think he can cheat a little bit," she cooed. Tan practically jumped out of his own skin.

"Don't do that," he said. "I can barely see!"

Julia pulled a piece of ignition material from a pocket in her suit. "Gimmie a rock," she said, not bothering to acknowledge Tan's complaint.

A moment later, after Tan had obliged, a storm of sparks flew from where she struck the igniter. The act put off enough light that they could see each other's faces in bold relief for a moment. The next, the small pile of kindling was alight in half a dozen places.

"That's handy," he said.

"Very," she corrected.

"So," he said. "What is this stone soup stuff?"

"First," she said. "We wait for those stones to get hot. Then I throw in all the tubers I've found, plus a hunk of our synth-beef rations, then the hot rocks."

"So, everything but the fire gets thrown in?"

"Well, except you," she said. "I could arrange that," for effect, she licked her fangs with her long, agile tongue.

"Hey!" he said. "That's not what I meant when I agreed you could have me for dinner!"

"I know!" she confessed, chuckling as she finished.

"So, are you sure we can eat this? I mean, what about space-plagues or something?"

"HSO ran a bio-culture when he sent down a sample probe," Julia explained, sounding somewhat more weary. "These bodies Hill Summit fabbed have a built in immunity package. Though I know it's there, I didn't see any major rewrites to the T-cell blueprints."

"Odd," he said. "But that means about as much to me as Babel."

She sighed. "There's no bugs here" she said.

Tan hummed in thought. But, the event was followed by silence as Julia waited for the stones to heat up. Stone Soup was for the patient, and they likely had enough time to spare.

It was odd, Julia mused, how the sudden disappearance of technology can do that to someone.